Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna

Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna. The Industrial Heritage Trail. Construction of the massive new steel plant beban on July 14, 1900. Equipment began arriving from Scranton nine months later. The company dredged a 3,300 foot ship canal and built miles of track to link the plant with the railroads. This allowed the iron ore, limestone, and coal to be brought in and processed into steel. The sprawling steel plant officially began steel production on October 20, 1903. It soon became the largest steel production facility in the country, giving the Lackawanna Steel Company the biggest market share in the nation, until it was supplanted only by the formation of U.S. Steel. , The large influx of workers from the company's old Pennsylvania site swelled the Town of Seneca's population. Controversy arose between the eastern and western sections of the town over paying for the necessary infrastructure improvements for both the steel plant and its workers. To help save the town from bankruptcy, residents proposed making the steel mill and the surrounding area its own incorporated municipality, and in 1909, the City of Lackawanna was formed. , A Bessemer converter in Lackawanna Steel. The Bessemer steel production process removed impurities from molten iron by blowing air through the bottom of the converter. Steel Plant Museum of Western New York. , Lackawanna Steel Plant, Buffalo 1903.