and they in turn shared business interests with Samuel A. Crozer, whose extended family—the wealthiest in Chester—owned the city's largest textile mills. Collectively, the Roach, Houston and Crozer families employed 25% of Chester's working population and accounted for 35% of its payroll, their partnership ensuring dominance of the city's politics. Early period, 1875-1879 The Chester Rolling Mill was established on the site of an old bridge and steel works at the foot of Wilson and Hayes Sts., Chester, incorporating the area between Townsend to Highland Ave., and from Front St. to the Delaware River. Construction of the main rolling mill, a building with dimensions of 160 x 185 feet, began in 1875. In 1879, the building was doubled in size, from 160 to 320 feet. Initial output was 700 tons of pig iron and 300 tons of iron ship plate. Pig iron, beams, and hull and boiler plates were produced both for Roach's main shipyard in Chester and for his other shipbuilding facility, the Morgan Iron Works in New York City. With the establishment of the Mill, Roach was able to introduce a number of innovations into the industry which reduced time and cut costs. To begin with, he rejected the standard ship plate size of 12 x 4 feet (48 squ. ft) and rolled larger plates of 14 x 5 ft (70 squ. ft). This simple innovation reduced the time spent in planing, punching and chipping plates by 40%, reduced handling times, and had the added advantage of producing a stronger ship with fewer butts to strain. Roach also endeavoured as far as possible to roll plates to their finished dimensions, saving time which other companies spent on reworking plates at the shipyard. Expansion of facilities, 1880-81 In 1880, Roach embarked on a substantial upgrade of the mill's facilities. A second blast furnace was constructed above the original rolling mill, along with new buildings covering about acres, including a new 90 x 140 ft steelworks. The new furnace commenced production on November 1, 1881. In order to pay for the expansion, the firm was recapitalized at $600,000. By this time, the Mill included two puddling mills with 11 furnaces and a total output of 50 tons per day, a mill for boiler and ship plate with a capacity of 45 tons per day, and a mill for angle, beam and skelp iron with a daily capacity of 35 tons.