Born in 1848, the same year that his father emigrated from Ireland to Cleveland, Thomas Fitzsimons attended the city’s public and parochial schools until age 14. The hard-working lad entered into an apprenticeship as an iron molder at his father’s foundry, where he would later develop a process for manufacturing cold-drawn steel. In 1903, he purchased a second plant in Youngstown, and by 1907 the Fitzsimons Company was producing 500 tons of cold-drawn product each month. Fitzsimons was active in civic and political affairs, particularly in the tax reform movement, and ran twice for mayor of Cleveland as an independent candidate. He died in 1921, leaving three sons to run the family’s iron and steel businesses.