The Atlanta Rolling Mill (later the Confederate Rolling Mill) was constructed in 1858 by Lewis Schofield and James Blake and soon after, Schofield and William Markham took it over and transformed it into the South's second most productive rolling mill, after the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. Their specialty was re-rolling worn out railroad rails but during the American Civil War it also rolled out cannon, iron rail, and 2-inch-thick (51 mm) sheets of iron to clad the CSS Virginia for the Confederate navy.