David Rockefeller Jr., whose famous family controlled Colorado Fuel and Iron in Pueblo from 1904-1944, will be the guest speaker for the Steelworks Center of the West’s “Faces of CF&I” annual fundraising dinner Feb. 17.

He is the grandson of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who along with his father John D. Rockefeller Sr., held the majority shares in the steel company for those momentous 40 years.

The era is remembered for the high point of development of Colorado’s largest and most influential employer throughout the first half of the 20th century and the low point of the Ludlow Massacre at a Southern Colorado coal-mining camp in 1914.

CF&I was such an economic presence in Pueblo that generations of families – many of them immigrants seeking a better life here – worked at the steel mill, received medical care at Dr. Richard Corwin’s company-sponsored hospital, shopped at the company-owned Colorado Supply store and found recreation and social life at the Steel YMCA.

Read more at The Pueblo Chieftain.