Kaiser Ventures (formerly Kaiser Steel) is an American corporation, headquartered in
Ontario, California. It was founded by
Henry J. Kaiser to provide
steel plate for the
Pacific Coast shipbuilding industry, which expanded during
World War II, then shrank, then expanded again during the Korean War.
California Shipbuilding Corporation on
Terminal Island, California, was one of these shipyards which built hundreds of
Liberty ships and
Victory ships in World War II, and was also a project of Henry Kaiser. Kaiser Steel was noted for making the most of its costly steelmaking inputs, and it captured, along with the
U.S. Steel plant in
Utah, much of the
Pacific Coast steel market by the late 1950s. Its assets included
steelmaking plants in
Napa, California (that it acquired from
Basalt Rock Company in 1955) and
Fontana, California, and a former
open-pit iron ore mine at
Eagle Mountain, California.