$4 million contract for Steel Style
- The Evening News, Published: Monday, June 7, 1979

NEWBURGH – Steel Style Inc. of 401 South Water St. was notified Wednesday it had received a $4 million contract from the Navy Department to build a drydock caisson gate for the naval shipyard at Pearl Harbor.

The contract award, announced by Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-NY, calls for Steele Style to build a gate 130 feet long, 20 feet wide and 50 feet high.

The gate is a floating vessel that seals off the entrance to a dry dock so the water can be pumped out and major repairs made on large ships.

Steel style project engineer Joel Trace said “This will be the fourth gate we have built for the Navy. At the present time we are completing a similar gate for the naval shipyard at Charleston, S.C., and we are starting one for the shipyard in Pourtsmouth, Va.

“We have 15 months to complete the gate for Pearl Harbor so we will now be building two at the same time.”

“The first gate we build,” continued Trace, “went to the General Dynamics yard in Groton, Conn., a number of years ago.

Old-timers might better remember the Groton facility as the Electric Boat Co., of World War II submarine fame.

Last year Steel Style completed the last of four caissons used as the foundations for the second span of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. The drydock gates are built at the Newburgh facility and towed to the yard to be used.

Trace said it was too early to talk about numbers, but the new contract will provide some additional jobs at the site.

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