File:Steel Stacks, Bethlehem, PA - 52402310177.jpg

English: In operation from 1857 until 1995, the former Bethlehem Steel Mill started as an ironworks known as the Bethlehem Iron Company, which was founded in 1857 as the Saucona Iron Company. The company was reformed as Bethlehem Steel Company in 1899, and then Bethlehem Steel Corporation in 1904. One of the largest steel manufacturers and shipbuilders during the 20th Century, Bethlehem Steel was headquartered in Bethlehem, and supplied the steel used to build many of the most famous and prominent structures in New York City and around the United States. The mill in Bethlehem saw most of its operations cease in 1982 after the company reported a loss of $1.5 billion due to increased competition from foreign imports made with cheaper and less regulated labor and industry elsewhere in the world, as well as financial obligations to former workers via pensions. The company became profitable again in the late 1980s, but subsequently saw further losses in the 1990s, leading to most of its operations becoming fully shuttered in this decade. The Bethlehem Steel Mill, which had produced steel used in so many iconic 20th Century landmarks in the United States, finally ceased operations in 1995. The company was declared bankruptcy in 2001 owing to its decline and was subsequently dissolved, with its remaining assets being first merged into International Steel Group in 2003, then the Mittal Steel Company in 2005, then ArcelorMittal in 2006, and finally, Cleveland-Cliffs in 2020. The five blast furnaces that make up the SteelStacks, the oldest of which dates to 1913, sit alongside the Hoover-Mason Trestle, a narrow gauge rail line structure that was built in 1905 to transport raw materials into and around the mill. Once having seven blast furnaces, two furnaces were removed in the 1960s after sitting dormant for years. The blast furnaces feature massive steel pipes, tanks, elevators, hoppers, walkways, and funiculars that were once used by the mill, which transformed iron ore into steel. Attached to the furnaces are metal-clad shed-like buildings that once housed some of the production operations of the mill. The former blast furnaces, though abandoned, have a picturesque quality, and have been preserved as a placemaking strategy, tying the site’s industrial past to its present uses. Atop the Hoover-Mason Trestle, alongside the blast furnaces, is a contemporary walkway, built between 2011 and 2015, that provides excellent views of the furnaces and the surrounding former mill site.