Ashland, Kentucky in the context of "Interstate 64 in Kentucky"

The strip mill was a major innovation in steelmaking, with the first being erected at Ashland, Kentucky in 1923. This provided a continuous process, cutting out the need to pass the plates over the rolls and to double them, as in a pack mill. At the end the strip was cut with a guillotine shear or rolled into a coil. Early (hot rolling) strip mills did not produce strip suitable for tinplate, but in 1929 cold rolling began to be used to reduce the gauge further. The first strip mill in the United Kingdom was opened at Ebbw Vale in 1938 with an annual output of 200,000 tons.

The strip mill had several advantages over pack mills:

Jackie Keith Whitley (July 1, 1954 – May 9, 1989) was an American country music and bluegrass singer and songwriter. During his career, he released only two albums, but charted 12 singles on the Billboard country charts, and seven more after his death.

Born in Ashland, Kentucky, Whitley grew up in nearby Sandy Hook. He began his career there in 1970, performing in Ralph Stanley's band. Establishing himself as a lead singer in bluegrass music, Whitley moved to Nashville in 1983 and began his recording career there. His first top-20 country hit single, "Miami, My Amy", was released in 1986. In 1988, his first three singles from his second studio album Don't Close Your Eyes, the title song, "When You Say Nothing at All", and "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" were number-one hits. During the final years of his life, Whitley struggled with a lifelong alcohol addiction. He completed his sessions for his follow-up album, I Wonder Do You Think of Me, before dying of acute alcohol poisoning in 1989 at his Goodlettsville home at age 34. The album's "title song", along with "It Ain't Nothin'" and "I'm Over You", were released as singles after his death.