Fire and Forge

A Desert Railroad, a Wonder Metal, and the Making of an Aerospace Blacksmith

Harry Rosenberg grew up near the hottest place on EarthDeath Valleyin a very unusual dwelling: a red caboose. His father repaired bridges for the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, which hauled ore from remote mines. During the Depression, the Rosenbergs traveled from washout to washout across a fiery land prone, paradoxically, to devastating floods of the Amargosa and Mojave Rivers. No other place on Earth was better suited to forge a curious boy into a metallurgist who would spend his life unlocking the vast potential of a difficult, new metaltitanium. In Fire and Forge, author Kathleen L. Housley tells Rosenbergs life storyworking as a miner, having a chance meeting with a geologist studying Death Valley, earning a PhD from Stanford, gaining patents for aerospace alloys, and founding a company that manufactures the purest titanium in the world. This biography captures the essence of a man whose work as a metallurgist left an impact on the world, but it also communicates Rosenbergs love for his roots. No matter how far he traveled, no matter the number of his successes, he never really left the Mojave Desert and the Amargosa Riverit still flows through his veins.