Looking Forward to Bethlehem's Future

The sprawling steel plant once occupied close to 1800 acres between South Bethlehem and the Lehigh River. After it shut down, the company took on a major environmental clean-up, leaving the site safe for future use. In the years that followed, citizens, city government, company executives, and developers worked to create a plan to redevelop this location. They faced the challenge of using the site for economic development while preserving its historical significance.
The hope is that the combination of historic preservation and economic development here today will strike that balance. The Bethlehem Steel buildings that remain can stay standing for a long time. They are relics of over 130 years of industrial history-both its triumphs and its failures. These structures are an ongoing reminder of the people who labored here and what they produced: the steel that built America.
"When I started here, I said, 'This place will be here long after I'm gone.' Well, that's not so. We just have to go on with our lives."
- Steve Williams
Motor Inspector
[Photo captions, from left to right, read]
· A view of Bethlehem Iron, captured by William Herman Rau around 1896.
· This photograph by Jeffrey Totaro was taken in 2012 during a summer concert.

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Show me all markers in:  Bethlehem, PA  |  Northampton County  |  18015  |  Pennsylvania  |  United States of America

Heat Treating
The No. 2 Machine Shop
Wartime Steel
Non-Native Plants
Why Did Bethlehem Close?
The Flow Of Goods & Money
One Of The Hardest Jobs In The World
A Legacy of Steel
The Bethlehem Beam
Bethlehem Built

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