The story begins in 1900, when the American Rolling Mill Company, known as Armco, was founded in Middletown. A decade later, the company expanded with a large plant on the city’s east side. But as production ramped up, Armco struggled to find enough workers locally.
“There weren’t enough people in the area to fill these jobs,” Ashworth said. “So the company went south to recruit workers.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
The recruitment of Black workers from southern states was not unique to Armco, Ashworth said, but part of a broader pattern across the Midwest as the steel industry boomed.
As Black workers migrated north in search of better employment and living conditions, Armco founder George M. Verity took steps to accommodate them. In 1913, the company built dormitories for Black workers arriving in Middletown.
“These guys had to have a place to live, they had to have a place to eat,” Ashworth said.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Though Ashworth doesn’t know the exact number of Black workers hired by Armco, he said Verity had told city leaders the company intended to hire 1,500 new workers with the plant expansion.
Credit: E.L. Hubbard
Credit: E.L. Hubbard
To support employees beyond the workplace, Armco hired Leroy W. Robbins to oversee programs and activities. Those offerings included baseball, track and field, pool and other activities.
In 1917, the Armco Colored Club was formed, followed a year later by the opening of Booker T. Washington School, which provided additional recreational and cultural space.
Photographs from that era, preserved in the Middletown Historical Society archives, document company progress and employee gatherings. Ashworth said Armco hired a photographer from its earliest days, publishing images in company bulletins.
Several of those images have been recovered, mounted on linen and bound into books, according to Ashworth.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Though Ashworth said he “can’t deny the social and cultural aspects of America” at the time, from his understanding and research, segregation was not Verity’s intention with establishing the dormitories and later the Armco Colored Club.
“I always felt that it was a way to help those employees have a better way of life,” he said.
Verlena Stewart, former Community Building Institute (CBI) executive director, said deeply-rooted segregation and racism has always existed, but she does not believe Verity intended to further or foster segregation.
“Without the benefit of knowing or ever having a conversation with Verity, he was very aware of the separateness that existed and the structure of it,” Stewart said. “I think what he did was 100% to help create community.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
In 1942, the Armco Colored Association (another moniker for the Armco Colored Club), along with Verity, dedicated a new clubhouse on Lafayette Avenue.
“Verity did that in an effort to create community, understanding that is a family is strongest when it’s whole,” Stewart said.
That clubhouse is now known as the Robert “Sonny” Hill Jr. Community Center, named in 2009 for the community activist and Middletown’s first Black mayor.
Armco donated the center to the city of Middletown in 1968, and the city has owned it ever since.
At the end of 2025, a $6.7 million renovation was completed at the community center, doubling the square footage of the facility and adding a new gym and family room for the building’s anchor tenant, CBI.
“We have worked very hard to make the community center a convening place for all races and all cultures because there’s room ... to embrace all of it,” Stewart said.
CBI, located at the community center since 2014, offers after-school and leadership programs, summer camp and literacy center to school-aged children — continuing Verity’s vision of community creation.
“I think that we are doing a really good job in making sure that all of our youth, all of our families feel comfortable, feel supported, regardless of their ethnicity, race, culture,” she said. “It’s a testament to Black history.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
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