In its heyday, the city of Butler was a "Steel Belt" manufacturing and industrial area. It remains home to an AK Steel factory. In 1902, the Standard Steel Car Company opened one of its largest railcar manufacturing facilities in Butler. It was here that some of the first all-steel rail cars were built. Diamond Jim Brady, the legendary financier, gourmand and gemophile, established the Standard Steel Car Company in 1902, which merged with the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1934, creating Pullman-Standard, a monopoly that was eventually broken by the government.