Category:Wire Mill, Allentown, Pennsylvania

What was known as the "Wire Mill" was an industrial site located in south Allentown. It was located at the southeast corner of Lehigh Street and what is today Martin Luther King Jr Drive. The wire mill was established as the Iowa Barb Wire Company in 1885, then sold in 1891 to the Consolodated Steel and Wire Company. The site consisted of thirteen acres bordering the Little Lehigh river and extended from Lehigh to Fourth streets. To secure this industry, the citizens of Allentown subscribed for bonds of the company to the amount of $75,000, accepting a mortage on the premises as collateral. William M Douglass came to Allentown as the superintendent, and during his management, the plant became a bulwark of the city's industrial life.

The wire mill was established as the Iowa Barb Wire Company by two brothers from Iowa, Charles and George Douglas. It was first established in Easton in 1884, then it was moved to Allentown in 1885. In 1891, the plant was sold to John Warney Gates, who renamed it the Consolodated Steel and Wire Company. The site consisted of thirteen acres bordering the Little Lehigh river and extended from Lehigh to Fourth streets. To secure this industry, the citizens of Allentown subscribed for bonds of the company to the amount of $75,000, accepting a mortage on the premises as collateral. William M Douglass came to Allentown as the superintendent, and during his management, the plant became a bulwark of the city's industrial life.

The mill produced barbed wire primarily for shipment to the Midwest, where it was used to fence off the open range and provide the homesteaders who moved to the prarie for agriculture use. It also produced galvanized wire and nails. The practice of using barbed wire by the homesteaders led to disagreements, conflicts, and also to "range wars" between large cattle ranchers and the homesteaders. The wire mill was taken over by J. P Morgan in 1981, who consolodated it into his United States Steel (U.S. Steel) conglomerate.

The height of its buisness began when World War I broke out in Europe in 1914. During the war, the plant operated 24 hours a day producing barb wire to ship to the Western Front in France. By 1915, it was a major producer for both the Allies, as well as the Germans, operating 24 hours a day with its workers producing more than 100,000 tons of barb wire, staples and nails to ship to the Western Front in France. With the United States entry into the war in 1917, shipments to Germany ended. By then, the Wire Mill and had its own police and fire departments as well as a small hospital. It was almost a "city within the city". By the 1930s, however, the plant was greatly affected by the Depression, and shut down most of its operations.

The heyday of the plant ended during the Great Depression. When the nation entered World War II, a number of contracts were awarded to the company. But the Allentown mill's distance from the major steel suppliers in Pittsburgh made it unprofitable to operate. In 1943, U.S. Steel closed the wire mill for good.

After the plant closed, vacant mill and the many buildings it consisted of was abandoned, becoming a run-down former industrial site. It also sufffered from vagrants lighting fires in its buildings for warmth, igniting small fires that required the Allentown Fire Department to extinguish. Also flooding was a common problem at the wire mill, with the Little Lehigh Creek regurarly overflowing its banks into the mill area until a flood control program ended the issue

In 1960, the first proposal was made to redevlop the area by tearing down the abandoned wire mill and build units of low-cost housing at the site. The plans fell through on the project, as well as several other projects planned for the site throughout the decade.

In August 1969, the Wire Mill site was purchaced by the Allentown Redevelopment Authority (ARA) as part of what was called the "Little Lehigh Redevelopment Project". The project raised the wire mill structures about 1971, although one large structure remained along Lehigh Street. Along with tearing down the mill, many other structures in the area were torn down as part of the project. Also, a proposed bridge connecting south 5th street to Auburn street, which would go over the vacant wire mill area was proposed, but never built.

In April 1985, the Allentown Garden Club turned part of the land once occupied by the former wire mill into "Wire Mill Meadow". It was the club's third arboretum with 28 trees and shrubs being planted on the site. The arboretum includes dogwoods, lilacs, hollies and crab apples, along with some benches and garden statues.