Bethlehem Steel Plant, Bethlehem, Northampton County

Zenkaikon was - as always - exactly what the doctor ordered for me. My presentation about "The Red Rose City: A History of Lancaster" (and also my second presentation about Welsh history and language) went extremely well and I was very excited! I had wonderful attentive audience members who asked great questions and really wanted more stories, so I've promised to come back next year and provide them. Hello to everyone who has found their way here because of the convention, and thank you for checking out my passion project!

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I came back from the convention and got sucked right into a week of work, so I just had no time to do a blog post last week. Heck, I barely remembered to get the newsletter done. But this week I'm going to stay right here in my adopted county of Northampton, and take a look at one of the Lehigh Valley's biggest industry titans of bygone days. Bethlehem Steel has a couple markers, actually, which we'll be examining in coming posts; today, we're going to visit the actual plant... or what's left of it. This post has more pictures than usual, simply because I have been there so many times and taken so many pictures.

The marker stands at the former steel plant entrance at
511 East Third Street, Bethlehem

Any child who grew up in the Valley during the 20th century was well aware of "the Steel." It was one of the best sources of jobs around for many years; almost everyone knew someone who worked there. The tide of their fortunes began to shift during my childhood, but it still held on until after I had finished high school. 

The history of "the Steel" dates back to 1857, when a man named Augustus Wolle started the Saucona Iron Company in Bethlehem. (If that surname sounds familiar to you, there's a reason; he was the paternal uncle of John Frederick Wolle, who founded Bethlehem's internationally famous Bach Choir.) Over the next few years, various circumstances like the Panic of 1857 caused the company to move, reorganize, and rename itself a couple of times. By May of 1861, it was the Bethlehem Iron Company, and by 1863 its first blast furnace was operating along the banks of the Lehigh River. A rolling mill churned out rails for the growing railroad industry, and also became notable for providing armor plating for the United States Navy. This was a particular factor in the company's changing destiny; over the next few decades, as the Navy first downsized, then was rebuilt, the Bethlehem Iron Company secured some lucrative contracts to provide forging and armor for them, including for the battleships USS Texas and USS Maine. In 1893, their work went to the Chicago World's Fair, where their iron was used to create the 140-foot steel tower of the world's first Ferris wheel; it was the largest single piece of cast iron ever constructed to date.

It was in 1898 that the Bethlehem Iron Company changed its name for the last time, formally becoming Bethlehem Steel for the first time. Among its directors were Robert H. Sayre, whose home in Bethlehem has a marker I'll be covering later, and Elisha Packer Wilbur, president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad (and nephew of its founder, Asa Packer). In 1901, Charles M. Schwab bought the Bethlehem Steel Company. It went through a bit of a topsy-turvy period over a couple of years, as Schwab first made it a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation (of which he was president) and then sold it to the United States Shipbuilding Company. In 1903 it actually replaced this latter institution, with plans being drawn up for what was named, in 1904, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The entrance to the enormous headquarters building, which still stands, can be seen at left.

Over the next few decades they began to diversify their production, being the first American company to manufacture wide-flange structural shapes. This led to the construction of many of the landmarks we know today, including the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in New York City, Hoover Dam in Arizona, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. During the World Wars, Bethlehem Steel shifted its focus to providing warships and military weapons; many historians regard the company's ability to make quality equipment for the military in a relatively short time as being one of the factors which led to our victories in both wars. The company also provided the steel used to make the Wonder Wheel, a peculiar variant of the Ferris wheel, at New York's famous Coney Island.

Bethlehem Steel was not only a major local employer, but it also invested in the entertainment of its workers. The Bethlehem Steel Company Band was formed in 1910 and participated in local parades and other events, providing music for the neighborhood. It had a soccer club, which was actually the forerunner of what today is the Philadelphia Union professional team. And for recreation purposes during the workday, special rooms were provided where the employees could gather, eat, smoke, and get a break from the heat of the blasts. One of these was just inside the gatehouse, and I took the picture at right through the window; cleanliness may have been important while the plant was operational, but as you can see, it hadn't been cleaned for quite some time when I was there.

Well into the 1970s, Bethlehem Steel continued to be a global juggernaut, in part because it didn't have a whole lot of international competition. Unfortunately, things started to change due to three main factors. One, foreign steel companies began to modernize their casting techniques, unlike many domestic manufacturers. Two, a lot of Steel workers were aging and retiring, meaning that the company was spending more on pension payouts than on regular wages. And three, low-rise construction became much more prevalent than high-rise construction (i.e. skyscrapers), meaning that the heavy and expensive products of Bethlehem Steel were not nearly in as much demand for buildings anymore. 

With all of these things spilling red ink on the company books, they had to shut down operations. I remember this vaguely; it was 1982, and I wasn't very old then. I can better recall the return to profitability in 1988, because it generated some excitement throughout the Valley, but it was little more than the beginning of a slow death. Throughout my teenage years, the company struggled to stay afloat, restructuring and reorganizing, selling off plants and discontinuing their coal mining branch. The great blast furnaces along the Lehigh River went cold in the mid 1990s; though operations continued at other locations for a little longer, they finally filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and the company dissolved outright in 2003. In 2019, they demolished Martin Tower, a local landmark which had been their corporate headquarters.

For a long time, the property was more or less left to rot. Over the last fifteen years, however, things began to change, and the process is still ongoing today. The property was sold and many of the buildings were revitalized. Leftover parts were recycled into decorative elements; some of the buildings were left intact, with educational signage explaining their importance to the operations, such as the High House whose interior you can see at left. The High House was where cannons were heat-treated and assembled for use in Navy battleships, and an example of one of those cannons has been positioned outside of the building as well. (The High House picture is one of my favorite photographs I've taken on the property, so I was determined to share it here.)

The extensive south Bethlehem grounds are now home to a casino, a hotel, and ArtsQuest and SteelStacks, an arts and entertainment district which features things like indie films and art shows. There's also a studio for our local PBS station, and the National Museum of Industrial History, a Smithsonian affiliate which houses (among other things) many of the company's records and photographs. The rusty giants which once erupted with fire have stayed right where they are and get illuminated with colored lights for various observations throughout the year. Musikfest, our annual cacophony of concerts and crowds, is partially hosted at the old Steel. It's also a significant part of the Heritage Trails walking tours offered by Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites.

In my future posts about Bethlehem Steel, I'll be telling you about a particularly notable steelworker who has a marker of his own, and also about the great and terrible strike which cost one worker his life. But in the meantime, if you get the chance to visit the grounds, it's an incredible walk through time.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of Bethlehem Steel. Defunct; preserved courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

Official website of the National Museum of Industrial History

Berger-Carmen, Tracy L. Images of America: Bethlehem Steel. Arcadia Publishing, 2022.

Warren, Kenneth. Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.

Downy, Kirstin. "Bethlehem Steel is no more." The Washington Post, May 1, 2003.

Various contributors. Steelworkers' Archives. Oral history project, 2001-present.

Bethlehem Steel Plant at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.