Usa slider bar to move back and forth across this 1923 photo of the Bethlehem Steel Plant in Lackawanna.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
The label in the photo above refers to the purchase of the Lackawanna Steel Company by the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1922. The Buffalo plant's
size (over 1000 acres) and room to expand, its location on the shore of Lake Erie, and its proximity to the major railroads serving the region made this plant
particularly attractive to Bethlehem Steel. Those advantages outweighed the $21 million dollar debt that the plant carried at the time of purchase as well as
the lack of modernization by Lackawanna. Bethlehem Steel would spend $40 million dollars in the 1920's in improvements to the plant. |
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
Lackawanna Steel had constructed a ship canal to bring boats adjacent to its unloading facilities.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
The new owners undertook demolition and reconstruction of the nine blast furnaces during the 1920s.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
The start of steel-making was the loading of the blast furnace with the ore, limestone and coke necessary to produce steel.
This step was called "charging" the furnace.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
This iconic steelmaking photo shows the "converter" (the ovate steel container in which the "charge" is added). At this point in the process, air has been forced into the container from channels in the bottom, causing the oxidation of impurities
in the form of the bright flame. Skilled steelworkers could tell when the process had been completed by the appearance of the
flame. |
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
Furnace A was the Bethlehem name of the former Lackawanna Steel Furnace 9, first operated in 1918.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
The Bethlehem Lackawanna plant made several types structural steel and rails during the 1920s. A "bloom" was an unfinished
cast product.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
Rails were made from reheating blooms and rolling them to size.
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
Image source: WNY Heritage Sunday Times Collection
At its peak in the 1960s, Bethlehem Steel employed over 20,000 at its Lackawanna Plant.
In 1982, steelmaking ended at the Bethlehem Lackawanna plant.
Special thanks to Mike Malyak, Volunteer for Research & Archives of the Lackawanna Public Library.