I was born and raised in Bethlehem. My father's family all worked for Bethlehem Steel, as did I for four summers between semesters in college. It was an experience I would not trade for anything. Your video brought back memories of my times at the plant, during which I worked throughout its entire span along the Lehigh River, from Hellertown to Fountain Hill. My father spent most of his career in the 12"&14" "hand mill," where he literally wrestled red hot ribbons of steel from one bank of rolls to another. He had hands of stone and grip strength like nobody else. The bankruptcy of the company was caused by a combination of factors; foreign competition (mostly Japan and Germany, which we ironically rebuilt after WW II), internal financial mismanagement and lack of vision, union avarice and employee apathy. My father worked there his entire adult life and told me to never entertain the thought that I could do likewise, since "this plant won't be here in twenty years." He could see the future, and lived to witness his prediction come true. The Bethlehem of my youth, with its exquisite Eastern European culture brought by the employees from their natal lands, is no longer, and this nation is the poorer for its demise.

Great work!! My family owned a large steel fabrication plant in New York. We were a long time customer of Bethlehem. We used to take employees on yearly “field trips” to the plant which was always so impressive. Thanks for making this tribute to what was an amazing part of our country’s history.

In the 1980’s I worked in the Aluminum extrusion business. Our plant manager told us that the Chinese were going to get into the extrusion business and there was nothing we could do about it. We can’t compete with them, he said and so the way our company was going to make money was by teaching them how to do it. I said I thought he should ask the steel industry if they thought that was a good idea. Remember people, Made in the U.S.A.

I hauled a lot of steel out of Bethlehem back in the 80s. I got to meet a lot of great people there and always enjoyed picking up there. Too bad what happened to that great company.

I went to the plant about 8 years ago. Just standing there staring at the ruins it really starts to hit you. Had tears in my eyes

I think you understate the roll that technology played in Bethlehem’s demise. The advent of the electric arc furnace in large numbers plus Bethlehem’s enormous cost structure meant that they just couldn’t compete. Their costs were too high. Their technology, their union contracts, their excessive management structure, golf courses, executive perks, etc. all contributed to their cost problems. In short it was a classic case of decades of mismanagement and not seeing the direction the industry was headed and getting ahead of it. It’s a classic case of the market doing what the market does.

I worked in the Bethlehem plant around 1970. I will now set out my explanation of why BS failed. The defined benefit pensions were unaffordably generous. Most of the plant was built before 1930. The only significant post-1960 addition to the plant was the Basic Oxygen Furnace in 1967. Injection molding and continuous casting were never implemented. Continuous casting of beams from fresh liquid steel was simply not possible. This dramatically raised the energy cost of many BS products. Finally, a steadily growing share of US steel production was from minimills recycling scrap. I submit that Nucor pulled the trigger on the American virgin steel industry.

Thank you so much for taking the time to make this video, I am a carpenter of 23 years, and I own a Welding and Fabrication company. It was so refreshing to get facts in a short amount of time with wonderful visual representations of what you're describing. It was a no-nonsense look back in time, please keep up the videos, you are appreciated, and one of a kind...

I had a buddy that was an overhead Crain operator he said he would go into work in the morning and sit in the cab of his Crain smoking drinking coffee and reading the newspaper sometimes for hours before the folks on the floor needed him to move something he said there was alot of nothing getting done but that was his point of view he passed away this past year I miss him he was a good friend

One correction: Steel beams and other structural steel were not cast material and are not produced in the foundry. They were rolled from ingots or blooms in various mills in the plant including the 42", 48", Combo Mill and the 12"&14" Mill. Other products were rolled on the 35", 18", 22" and the 3-9"/3-12" Hand Mills. The 35" and 18" Mills produced blooms and the 22" Mill produced round stock used to make drill collars.

I spent 50 years operating a steel fabrication and erection company in NJ. Bethlehem Steel was our major supplier until they closed down operations. We would buy about 2,000 tons per year. They delivered quality products on time with all required markings and certifications. When they stopped producing steel our industry began relying on service centers for our materials. Buy American almost disappeared overnight.

Thanks and we'll done. I was at Lehigh University in the late 1960s and went on a tour of the plant when it was in operation. They were quite proud of the development of steel that would self protect with a layer of rust, that steel was used for the New Street Bridge in Bethlehem linking south Bethlehem to downtown. Back then if you told people the plant would be closed in 25 years I think most would disbelieve you.

I spent a summer during my college years working in an area of the plant then called the "cinder dump" checking for outside railcars so the company would not have to pay demurrage daily charges to the Lehigh Valley railroad. My parents lived in Bethlehem (and Allentown at the end) starting in 1946 until their passing. Great memories. Thanks for the up-close view today.

Very good video. If anyone was interested, the cylinders at 4:50 are called stoves. They are on a cycle of heating using an internal burner, then on a blast cycle. Only one of the 3 is on blast at a time. Very old ones are manually changed over. All operating stoves around the world now are automatic.

The town did a nice job preserving the “steel stacks” as are they are nestled among a casino/hotel, local theatre, and PBS TV station. I attended a company meeting at the theatre in 2015 and was surprised to find a board with former steel company employees, including my father’s name, which was part of fundraiser that me and my siblings had donated to many years earlier. Brought tears to my eyes.

Bethlehem Steel had a slow decline when they did not get the WTC steel contract in the 1960s; it was cheaper to bring finished steel from Japan. Management did not take this threat seriously. The 25 years and out policy was not financially backed with cash. They would do that later was the policy of management at that time, it was thought that future sales would cover that financial short fall.

Two major factors, management didn't fully realize the coming challenges, and labor didn't either... both gave away the farm.

Great video and very informative. Thanks so much for taking the time to make it!!

Our family was from Johnstown Pa just about everyone worked at Bethlehem Steel until it closed. That was a disaster even today the city is suffering.

Well done, very good information. We were just walking the Bethlehem steel mill last week, and found all your information is very informative. Thank you for making this video.

The production quality of this video is fantastic, keep up the great work.

I work in Bethlehem today, and most of us who do consider the remaining structures from the mill to be landmarks. If you have ever visited at night, you've seen the towers of the blast furnaces lit in bright colors, and the space near them has been used for Musikfest for many years, with the furnace towers as a backdrop for excellent music. I think a lot of us hope that those furnaces will be preserved in some fashion as a part of the museum, or just as local landmarks.

I’ve been there and wanted to know more about its history. Thank you for this video.

It was some place when it was up and running. I used to run fuel oil in there, and other days take coal tar emulsion outta there. I liked being there when it was getting dark and they would have a rail car full of molten slag glowing and sparks shooting out of hopper sitting on a siding. Was a neat plant... shame it is gone...

Great video, thank you for preserving the history of this great enterprise!!!

I work at the old Cornwall Quarry. It is called PRL inc now. I love 15 minutes away in Lebanon City. The whole city was build around our Bethlehem steel plant. The railroad cuts the town in half, with all the old plant building lining the railroad. This video was pretty cool, thanks for sharing.

I delivered truckloads of stone to the old steel mills in around 2005 to 2007. I have no idea what the used the stone for, but the place is extraordinary. Driving in, you can see how this dominated the landscape. You get a sense of how powerful American industry was. To bring America to a level to compete with another entire continent, or even on a world level. Besides the mill, there's also fascinating homes and old storefronts built in the area. Videos like these don't do justice to the ghosts you feel when you enter a place like this. It just feels like a glimpse of an America we will never see again, and that's a damn shame.

There was a big Bethlehem steel over here at the Port of Indiana right off of lake Michigan that all closed at the same time has inland steel.. they ended up selling to arcelormittal bought all of Bethlehem in inland and then they sold and now it's Cleveland cliffs they own both of the Mills and they are only running at like 30 to 40% capacity.. United States steel is doing really good over here in Gary still.. during the 80s all the steel mills that stretch over 25 miles from east Chicago to the port of indiana we're running great and now a couple of them have closed or sold out but they are still making steel pretty good over here in indiana.. there was several big steelmakers over here like LTV Bethlehem inland Midwest Republic Bethlehem uss.. now it's mostly Cleveland cliffs and the United States steel and there are still several other steel processing plants over here doing ok

Thanks for sharing, I was loosely familiar with the US production from a historical perspective so it's cool to learn about the actual facilities.

--I worked for Bethlehem steel in the 60s in industrial engineering and was astounded that they did not use continuous cast methods along with the basic oxygen furnace at the lackawanna plant near buffalo NY. I worked there for a couple of years while in college then moved on. I think the primary reason for The failure was in not adopting the continuous casting methods used by competitors in Japan (at the time). This method was so much more efficien and eliminated reheating from Ingots to finished shapes such as steel beams. And moving ingots about on rail cars. It was a very interesting place to work and learn about such a basic industry and illustrates how so many of our industries stagnate now. By not innovating current example EVs it took Elon musk a few years to demonstrate the electric cars could be a main stream product and the established industries seem to be way behind the 8ball…

This was so cool to watch and has thought me stuff about what I call the steel stacks ik that my home town had a lot of history but this video taught me thing I didn't know and I live right down the street from this beautiful sight thank u 😊

It's really truly sad that Bethlehem steel had to close.It's closure clearly hurt the economy of allentown which was clearly the inspiration of the billy joel song Allentown,a sad song that every time I hear it, it has me almost in tears.My heart goes out to all the 30,000 people that worked there and lost there jobs when this industrial giant closed and went bankrupt,so truly,heart breakingly sad.John M Guinto

Nice video! I appreciate the effort you put into it. Thanks!

I don’t mean to nitpick but Bethlehem Steel is directly East of Allentown and probably only 5 miles away. The Lehigh Valley is an underrated place. I know people from there will say “it’s not what it used to be” and people from the outside looking in won’t know what it is (which I hope changes) or they will hate on it especially within pennsylvania, but I’ve lived in 6 states and 3 countries and I always loved the Lehigh valley. Allentown is the 3rd largest city in PA behind Philly and Pittsburgh and the Lehigh Valley has almost a million people and 3 beautiful cities all in a line. If you’re ever in the area, go check out historic Bethlehem (especially in winter), the waterfront in Easton, and Cedar Beach or 7th and Hamilton in Allentown. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have and I wish that you have pride in where you’re from the way Allentonians should and sadly generally don’t.

Thank you for a great video !! I worked for B S the summer of 1965 as a summer employee. I made money for my college tuition. The work provided an education as good as I received at college !!

It's only a few miles EAST of Allentown. It happens to be in Bethlehem.

Very nice video. I enjoyed it very much, Thanks.

Great job!. I'm building an abandoned steel mill for a game and your video gave me some very good views for my models. That's my hobby, but I service wide format printers for a living. I live in Chicago, so I used to service Bethlehem steel, US steel, Midwest steel, and LTV steel, all around Gary Indiana from June of 1984 until they all one by one closed up in the 90's. It's so sad to see all that impressive industry and capitol investment just abandoned and all the workers cut loose. As you mention, they built this country and helped us win allot of wars. Best regards to you!

Awesome place. Went there for work trip and an amazing place. Seen this on my way to the casino. Will love to visit again was just a perfect little trip.

I grew up in Bethlehem and when I was a kid those blast furnaces used to scare the crap out of me

As a former steel worker at Laclede Steel at Fairless Works, it's a shame 146 years of progress and adapting to the times and then to out the way it did. Makes my heart ache.

In 1981 I had worked with a guy that came to Laplace, to work at Bayou Steel, a mini-mill that was new and just brought on line. The guys name was Michael Gay, he was laid-off at Bethlehem and moved his family down to Louisiana. Mike has passed on now and I can say, He was a damn good man.

Excellent summary of what went wrong.

funny how this popped up in my suggestion, I visited recently and fell in love with the place.

I started with Bethlehem Steel right out of college in 1969 with a training program there in Pennsylvania teaching us about the complete process as well as the products and services of all the divisions. Mornings in lectures and afternoons to each operation. After weeks I went to the new Burns Harbor plant where I worked in the 160 in plate mill. At that time they were unloading South Korean hot roll coils across the small harbor destined for the auto industry parts manufacturers. I saw then that American steel was doomed.

In the 70s I worked in w machine shop where we machined repairs on the rollers and bearing boxes for Bethlehem steel .

Yeah hey that was good footage of that place. Very old place. And 30,000 people working there. And it stretched for miles. Wow. I can imagine. Thanks for ur efforts. 😁👍

Great vid - very informative.

Loved video. So sad this has happened in UK. Our blast furnace on Teesside is now being demolished ☹️

Thank you. My family lived near Bethlehem when I was little. My father worked in the nearby Firestone tire factory, and we moved to Virginia when Firestone opened a synthetic tire cord factory there. I have read some of the comments, but do not see anything about the expense and availability of the materials Bethlehem used to make the steel. For example, it is my understanding that there is little anthracite coal left to mine, and I do not know about the iron ore. Were Bethlehem Steel's supply costs competitive with those elsewhere? Did their competitor Japan even have local (in-Japan) supplies at all?

Thanks for this video- I cry when I walk the Steel Stacks - god bless those who worked at the steel and built our great country!

For the most part, GREED is why we have lost many steel mills ! The greed of a hell of alot at top is unmatched ! 😢

I live in Bethlehem and find the history of Bethlehem steel fascinating and political. I wasn't alive when the company was running so its interesting to hear and learn everyone's perspective. The workers even in a union never had the last say so I never fully agree on unions and pensions were the ultimate downfall of the company. The profit margins of this company were insane. The pensions were compensated by raising prices and because the company didn't modernize they couldn't raise prices. To see the old steel mill as a casino is symbolic to life in America rn, makes you wonder if we all being left to rust.

EAF technology wasn't fully developed and used widespread in steel mills until the late 60's and 70's, giving rise to minimills. The rebuilding of German and Japanese mills involved blast furnaces and conventional integrated steelmaking. Bethlehem Steel was so insular and conservative that it was the last integrated producer to embrace BOF technology, clinging to open hearth furnaces to convert iron to steel long after most of her competitors built BOF's. My dad worked in purchasing at their main office in Bethlehem from 1951 to 1968, and often lamented at Beth Steel's reluctance to embrace new technology. They hired enginheers directly from Lehigh University, which they supported, and only promoted from within, people who were indoctrinated in how they do business, discouraging innovations not developed by their own Homer Laboratory. My family worked at Bethlehem 3 generations, starting in 1901 with my great grandfather. When it closed it felt like the death of a family member, but no funeral to attend.

I watched a documentary on the local PBS channel here in Buffalo and it said our Lackawanna plant employed 25,000 workers at one point. Some of the older gus who were interviewed said alot of the problem was also that the customers they once had became their competition. These countries started producing steel.

Great video. our steelworks at redcar,northeast uk closed down, last week the blast furnace was blown up/demolished. its on you tube. production was 10,000 tons per day. this month the gas stoves will be demolished too. we have very little heavy industry now. Unions,cheap foreign imports,and just badly run all round.

I remember my dad went there he worked in a steel stamping Co his whole life he said it was so sad to see it sitting idle .

My Father worked for Bethlehem Steel. He was born in 1952, worked there from 1954, until 1958. He was 6 years old when he retired from Bethlehem Steel and went on to work as a structural steel ironworker from the age of 6, till he passed away at 52, in Feb 2003. I wasn't even born yet and he used to take me to work with him. I miss those days...

Amazing history of development and success I’ve heard some say the war would’ve been lost it’s not for Bethlehem Steel ❤

Just like the numerous Alcoa and Kaiser aluminum smelters we had in WA, all shutdown and some were demolished some are still intact.

Great video from the walkway that was converted from the trestle you mention. I was disappointed that you did not mention what the site is now. Some of the buildings remain standing but are decaying partially due to promises made by the Sands organization which fell through. There has also been talk of a Bass Pro Shop and an indoor water park in the #2 Machine Shop which also fell through. I also noted that you did not attribute the Steel Worker's Union and over generous benefits to the demise of the Steel. No where else have I ever heard of a rank and file laborer get 13 weeks off with pay for longevity.

So many mighty great lakes freighters worked for the Bethlehem Steel Company.

The mill in Bethlehem, PA didn't die, it moved. The structural steel it produced is now produced at Gerdau Petersburg. The forge shop is still running as Lehigh Heavy Forge.

Very interesting video. Thanks

Great video. Thanks.

In 90s Ford Motor Co use this steel for all suspension parts on theirs models (front & rear springs, suspensions bars).

Very very interesting, thank you.

Foundries, like other industries, can't often escape the EPA. It'd be interesting to see if it and anything associated with it's operations are considered a Superfund Site. I was working for one of the most sophisticated foundries this time last year. By June they'd began shutting down after decades of not missing a lick. Rumor is they'd ran out of space for their waste and was failing to contain what was already stored.

Thank you. Very interesting.

I can tell you what didn't help BHS Back in the mid 70ds I got out of highschool and my uncle got me a job at crest steel in Wilmington CA , Thay were adding more shifts to cut parts for the Alaskan pipeline and on TV when they were selling the idea of a pipeline and it was going to give BHS a (quote shot in the arm) , one of the first things that I was instructed to do is take a 7 inch disk grinder and grinder off the white stamp on the sheets of steel that reads made in Korea and a huge series of numbers these emblems were about 20 inches wide and a foot tall,. All of the steel was certified and a visual inspection was done every few weeks and when that black Lincoln continental showed up and the miinala folder was passed through the window I always wondered what was on it, but I could gess. We cut the part's for the clamps and once in a while the 2 3/8" thick slabs would have an air pocket and all hell would break out from the stripper with multiple torch tips

There's a video that was posted on KZfaq 15 years ago that was filmed at Bethlehem in 1994 titled "Dumping slag at Bethlehem", that seems to be in people's recommendations recently but I remember watching it when I was a kid. If it wasn't for the algorithm I never would have know this place failed.

I worked at court industry in Ontario Canada we used to chrome plate the rolls for Bethlehem steel in the late 80’s

Absolutely loved the video. Terrible to see it left behind.

Great video - lots of fascinating details. A correction on a minor point. At the outset you state that the plant was founded in 1857, on the heels of the Civil War. The Civil war began in 1861 and ended in 1865. Better description: “The plant was built in 1857, at the threshold of the Civil War.”

There was also a Bethlehem steel plant in sparows point md. Which has since been torn down.

Excellent Sir!!

✨Great video well done✨

Thank You very educational

I read, that Bethlehem Steel, supplied the steel, for the bridge that spans the NH/Maine state line (Piscatiqus River) of I-95, and was one of the last large steel projects that Bethlehem Steel worked on, back in 1976. Sad..

Awesome. Great job!!!!

Very interesting video, with a lot of great information about something I never knew existed, and only happened upon from watching a video of the slag from this mill being drained down a hill. Suggestion: your audio needs some work. Having your voice in only one ear is very uncomfortable for headphone users, you might want to explore some tutorials on producing quality audio for KZfaq videos. Again, great work and great B-roll shots, were these taken by you?

Only one word destroyed Bethlehem steel UNION

Nice work ❤

Interesting information.

I'm old enough to remember when this was considered such a solid company you could put in your 401k and just forget about.

Really Cool video. Just so you are aware: your audio only comes out of the left channel.

My uncle worked at u s steel in Gary Indiana. Got 13 weeks a year paid vacation. Imagine having 4 thousand employees and half of them got that much time off. Won't be in business long

Well, you should raise your volume a bit. I would’ve liked to have seen/heard more about the “why” of its demise and the impact of it on the local community.

This is so cool to see this I never knew this I served in the navy

Going off the gold standard actually decreased the value of the US dollar, which made it cheaper for other countries to purchase American exports. If anything, going off the gold standard and the subsequent inflation would have actually made the mill more competitive.

Great video 👍

really cool place to visit

Great video

Greatings from Longwy 🇲🇫

Nice video, kind of sad but well done.

Great video.!

I'm actually wearing 2 Bethlehem steel pins in me after I had a fractured arm and dislocated elbow when having surgery. I knew someone who worked at Bethlehem steel.

Amazing vídeo

My grandfather worked in the Pittsburgh Steel Works from 1913 to 1923

I was one of the first employees at this facility. We all knew it would end some day.