The paper investigates the development of concept of authenticity in industrial cities. The author analyzes the presentation strategies pursued by the key enterprises of the Ural tube industry, as embodied in material (urban planning and industrial complexes) and verbal (historical narrative) forms. For those plants established in the 1930-1940s, namely, Pervouralsk Novotrubny and Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plants, the main strategy was technological heroism associated with unique projects and recent reindustrialization. In contrast to them, the Seversky Pipe Plant, which switched to the production of tube only in the 1960s, built a representation around historical continuity in relation to the “mining civilization” of the Urals by preserving the place of historical memory - the blast furnaces of the 19th century. The author concludes that the historical differences in the narratives about enterprises affect the practices of their positioning in the urban environment, and, consequently, the very concept of authenticity, which in turn is required for the successful formation of the experience economy.