bethlehem's blast furnaces stand 17 stories tall, and in their heyday the output of one of these five furnaces was about 3,000 tons of iron a day.
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bethlehem was an 'integrated' steel mill. they owned their own mines, they owned their own rails, they produced their own power. they controlled every aspect of steelmaking from the mines to the finished product. they even had their own fire and police department.
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the interior of the blast furnace was a tangled labyrinth the likes of which I have never seen.
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one of the most memorable things about being in the blast furnace was how a gust of wind would send the whole place into a fit of moaning, creaking and clattering. a strong enough gust made the place sound like a demonic pipe organ.
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medium gauge and narrow gauge tracks share the middle rail where iron ore and limestone cars would dump their cargo through the slotted train tracks and into hoppers below. the mixture would then be conveyed to the top of the 17 story blast furnace and deposited within.
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a former steelworker recognized this place as control room b - the site of a terrible furnace explosion in the 1980s.
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once a furnace got 'tapped' the hot molten iron flowed through a vast array of 'runners' such as this one before being deposited into 'submarine cars' waiting beneath the casting floor.
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the large silos are blast ovens or 'stoves'. they fed heated air into the blast furnaces and were powered by a combination of fresh gas (mostly carbon monoxide) and recycled 'dirty' gas created by chemical reactions in the blast furnace. 'waste gas' would be emitted from the stacks.
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the illuminated building on the right is the central tool annex. in the background are the administrative buildings where some of america's mightiest businessmen once made decisions that affected the fate of the world.
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no. 2 machine shop was the main ordnance facility of the bethlehem plant. during world war I alone, 65,000,000 pounds of forged military products, 1,100,000,000 pounds of steel for shells, and 20,000,000 rounds of artillery ammunition were produced here.
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during the wars the steel had to paint over many windows to help conceal itself in case of air attack at night. an attack never happened of course, but you have to consider that with as much ordnance as bethehem steel produced it would have been a prime target.
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a "welfare room" is an old-fashioned term for "locker room". instead of actual lockers, employees would place their valuables in a basket, hoist it up to the ceiling, then padlock it to a numbered post.
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a "welfare room" is an old-fashioned term for "locker room". instead of actual lockers, employees would place their valuables in a basket, hoist it up to the ceiling, then padlock it to a numbered post.
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this slightly more modern welfare room had some actual lockers.
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I was taking pictures in one of the welfare rooms when I backed into this low-hung basket and discovered the remains of two baby birds inside.
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long before the united steelworkers fought for things like 'automatic cost-of-living adjustments' and 'supplemental unemployment benefits', they fought for things like this: showers, lockers, hand-washing stations.
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the gas powered engines in the gas-blowing engine room performed double duty by generating electricity and high-pressure air to be sent to the blast furnaces.
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this is a building with a history of violence. battleship cannons were tempered in this building. during WWII, all the navy's 16" cannons were forged at bethlehem and tempered here. it is also the site of tragedy where 8 workers perished in a single incident involving a carbon monoxide leak.
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st. michael's cemetery was the 'working-class' cemetery in south bethlehem. across the river is the more 'exclusive' nisky hill cemetery where legendary bethlehem steel CEO eugene grace is buried.
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sand island is connected to the mainland via a small pedestrian bridge, for which there seems to be no other purpose than to better view these magnificent blast furnaces.
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much of what is seen in the foreground of this shot has been torn down to build a parking lot for the sands bethworks casino and hotel.
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the sun sets on no.2 machine shop and blast furnaces
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when i took this photo, a small portion of the old bethlehem plant was still in operation as lehigh heavy forge. but casino plans clearly encroach on these buildings, so it would appear that LHF's future is uncertain.
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Sara comes from a long line of Bethlehem steelworkers. She got this tatoo so she would never forget.
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