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This Friday, May 3rd, I'll be heading to my birth city to attend the marker dedication ceremony for the Allentown State Hospital. It was originally supposed to be held last fall but got rescheduled, and I only just found out a few days ago that it was set for this week! They've scheduled a few more dedication ceremonies throughout the coming summer, so be sure to check the official calendar to see if any of them are happening near you.
Meanwhile, for the first quest of the fifth month, let's travel to Chester County and take a look at the history of a company which, like the bird for which it was named, emerged from its own ashes repeatedly over almost two centuries before finally closing its doors.
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| The marker stands near the Schuylkill River Heritage Center at 2 North Main Street |
The story begins in 1783, when the French Creek Nail Works was first established near the banks of the Schuylkill River. Benjamin Longstreth,the founder, built it as a rolling and slitting mill and, as the name implies, was chiefly dedicated to the manufacture of nails. This didn't change when he sold the business in 1812 to Lewis Wernwag, who renamed the business the Phoenix Iron Works. He then sold in 1827, and the new owners added more buildings to the compound, allowing increased capacity for making nails. The nails were sold in small barrels, and by 1841, the Phoenix was able to churn out 32,000 such barrels full of nails each year. By this time, the company had become the first of its kind to generate steam through the burning of anthracite coal. The Phoenix's footprint had expanded into a large complex featuring warehouses, a blast furnace, a puddling furnace (which turns pig iron into wrought iron or steel), an iron foundry, and ancillary buildings.
As the 1840s got underway, the owners of the Phoenix recognized the opportunity presented by the rapidly growing railroad system. They decided to reorganize the works under their own names - Reeves, Buck and Company - and added a rail mill to the complex. They quickly became one of the largest iron rail producers in the region, and by 1850 they were putting out more than 9,000 tons of rails every year. In 1855, they went back to the old name of the Phoenix Iron Works, and started adding iron beams and structural supports to their catalogue in order to capitalize on the construction and bridge-building industries.
A few years later, the country was embroiled in the Civil War, and the Phoenix joined the northern effort by becoming a producer of cannons and cannon balls for the Union Army. John Griffen, who by this time had become the superintendent of the Phoenix, had invented what became known as the "Griffen Gun" - a spiral-wrapped iron cannon that was safer to operate than many previous designs. The Phoenix filled orders for more than a thousand such cannons during the years of the war, and some can still be seen today at Gettysburg and on other preserved Civil War battlefields.
Also during the war years, Samuel Reeves (who eventually became president of the Phoenix Iron Company) patented a design which he named the Phoenix Column. This was forged by riveting multiple wrought iron pieces together in, well, a hollow column; the final product weighed less than the solid cast iron columns being used in construction at the time, but was also stronger and could support more weight. I'll admit I don't understand how that works, but the design was absolutely revolutionary and changed American engineering forever. One noteworthy structure which used Phoenix columns was Madison Square Garden in New York City. There was a suggestion of using them to build a thousand-foot observation tower for Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition in 1876, but the plan never came to fruition.
The columns were also used for constructing elevated train lines and bridges, including the extraordinary Kinzua Viaduct, and they achieved such a level of success doing this that they formed a subsidiary company to focus solely on producing Phoenix columns for railway use. This firm, which went through a few name changes before ultimately being called the Phoenix Bridge Company, oversaw the construction of more than four thousand bridges across the United States and in several countries around the world.
Phoenix columns were also used in another notable structure in Washington, D.C. No less a landmark than the Washington Monument was built using Phoenix columns of varying sizes. The image at left, which comes to us courtesy of the Library of Congress, shows some of the plans for the monument including the use of Phoenix columns.
As the 20th century dawned, the Phoenix Company began producing steel instead of iron. Unfortunately, the company started to experience a downturn, partly caused by the gradual decline of bridge sales. Even more unfortunate was the reason why - a number of Phoenix bridges collapsed during construction, which didn't exactly do wonders for their reputation. The worst of these was a bridge in Quebec, which collapsed in 1907 and killed seventy-five workmen. Adding insult to injury, the Phoenix was up against the United States Steel Company in Pittsburgh, which was chartered by Andrew Carnegie and his partners in 1901 and quickly proved itself a domineering adversary. (U.S. Steel still operates today, which is more than can be said for most of its rivals.) They were able to rally somewhat as the World Wars brought increased need for their products, but after the restoration of peace, the decline slowly resumed. The Phoenix Bridge Company shuttered in 1962; the main company was able to continue its uphill struggle for a couple more decades, but the overall dwindling of the iron and steel industry throughout the state meant that closure was inevitable. The original plant in Phoenixville stopped producing in 1984, and by 1987, the company - now called Phoenix Steel Corporation - had closed all of its satellite branches as well.
As of today, most of the company's buildings have been demolished. But in the late 1990s, the National Park Service oversaw the acquisition of the Phoenixville property by the Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation. They renovated the old foundry building and transformed it into the Schuylkill River Heritage Center, which tells the company's story and educates visitors about the natural and industrial heritage of the Schuylkill River and Chester County. Visiting the official website, which I've linked in the sources section, will let you view a variety of pictures from the renovation process, as well as some old ones from the glory days of the company.
The Phoenix rose from her own ashes one last time.
Sources and Further Reading:
Official website of the Schuylkill River Heritage Center
Winpenny, Thomas R. Without Fitting, Filing, or Chipping: An Illustrated History of the Phoenix Bridge Company. Canal History and Technology Press, Easton, Pennsylvania, 1996.
Bining, Arthur. Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century. Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1938.
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.
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