Moravian Preservation Master Plan.indb - Society for College and ...

Moravian College • Preservation Master Plan
completed. Other buildings followed and in 1868,
the firm merged with the adjacent Northampton
Furnace. In 1873, the plant began to manufacture
steel. The company was reorganized in 1899 as
the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. By 1900, the
enterprise covered over a mile of riverbank and
had 25 acres of land under roof (Levering 1903:723-
726; Steers 2007:7-8).
The construction and expansion of the Bethlehem
Iron Company along the Lehigh River spurred a
new wave of land sales and building projects on
the south side of the river. In 1865, this area was
incorporated as South Bethlehem. Several of the
officers of the railroad and iron company made
their homes in this area, and used their influence
to incorporate a water and gas works to supply the
new borough. At the same time, Lehigh University
was founded in 1865 by Judge Asa Packer as a men’s
polytechnic institution on 57 acres of land along the
upper end of the town. Other changes were in the
transportation realm. With the canal in ruins after
flooding in 1862, the Lehigh and Susquehanna
Railroad was constructed in 1867, and a fourth
railroad, the Lehigh and Lackawanna, was built by
1868. The New Street Bridge was completed in 1867
as a better connector between Bethlehem and South
Bethlehem, and the Broad Street Bridge was built in
1870 (Levering 1903:726-738).
Growth of the city continued, with European
immigrants arriving in large numbers to take
up industrial jobs. South Bethlehem had 20,000
inhabitants by 1900, of whom 70% were immigrants.
Slovaks made up one-third of this group. In 1886, the
borough of West Bethlehem was incorporated, and
a sizeable silk manufacturing operation was begun.
Electricity, a market house, road macadamization,
and streetcar service all were inaugurated in the
late 1880s and early 1890s (Levering 1903:756-760;
Steers 2007:8).
Twentieth Century Bethlehem
After the turn of the century, Bethlehem continued
to grow, with much of the growth spurred by
the expansion of industry in and around the city.
It reached a population of 58,000 by 1942, with a
hospital, six hotels, one college, one university, one
high school, and over 70 churches (Steers 2007:9).
By 1942, Bethlehem Steel was the second-largest
steel corporation in the world, with a mill campus
that extended over four miles along the Lehigh
River and employed thousands. In addition to
Bethlehem’s main plant, the corporation owned
numerous other mill facilities across the country,
including a large mill, shipyard, and employee
village at Sparrows Point in Baltimore (Steers
2007:6-9).
World War II’s defense needs and massive
military deployment sent Bethlehem into high
gear. Bethlehem Steel stepped up production and
became the largest single manufacturer of military
materials in the world. Over the course of the war
it built 1,000 warships. At peak size, it had 32,000
Bethlehem-area employees, 2,000 of whom were
women. Its national numbers were even higher:
284,000 employees with 25,000 women (Steers
297:6-7).
At the end of World War II, Bethlehem’s population
had jumped to 68,000, largely due to the defense
workers. Demand for steel continued to be high
during the postwar period, and returning veterans
stepped into jobs created during the war production.
The city had an estimated 13,500 houses, with 65%
occupied by owners (Steers 2007:224).
The market for U.S.-made steel disintegrated toward
the end of the twentieth century. By the 1980s, the
fortunes of Bethlehem Steel and other American
steel companies were plummeting, and steel towns
and cities faced widespread unemployment and
economic losses. American steelmakers collectively
suffered losses of over seven billion dollars
between 1981 and 1985. The massive Bethlehem
Steel struggled to continue but ultimately could
not. Its blast furnaces ceased operating in 1994,
and all steelmaking at the Bethlehem plant was
shut down the following year. The unused steel
plant languished until 2001, when Bethlehem Steel
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company’s
remaining assets were sold to the International
Steel Group two years later (Steers 2007:13).
In 2007, the Bethlehem property was sold to Sands
BethWorks, and plans for a casino to be built where
the plant once stood were drafted. Construction
began in fall 2007; the completion of the casino
is expected by 2009. Ironically, the casino had
difficulty finding structural steel for construction,
thanks to a global steel shortage and pressure to
build Pennsylvania’s tax-generating casinos. 16,000
tons of steel will be needed to build the $600 million
complex (Schamberger 2008).
John Milner Associates • October 2009 • Chapter 2 • Historic Overview • 17