We went there on our return trip from Pennsylvania and I suggested it as a stop-off mainly because the size of the place interested me, but also because it was on the same route as another place we wanted to see, Frick's Lock. Well, Frick's Lock ended up being off limits, so this meant Bethlehem Steel was going to be our only other stop on the 10 hour car ride home.
Here's what I knew about the place heading in. It was an old steel factory, it was closed for business but now open for public touring, and it was big. And by big, I mean giant! Any picture I took that day could not do justice to the sight we saw driving into Lehigh Valley and seeing this place absolutely hover over the city of Bethlehem.
After figuring out where to park and how to get into the place, our first pleasant surprise was that, even though it's been turned into a park and someone went through the cost of adding all new raised walkways, there's no charge to tour the factory. They asked just two things of us, sign the guest register and tell them where we came from. Then it was up the catwalk and off we were on our self guided tour.
We probably spent half an hour walking the length of Bethlehem Steel, reading plaques that showed old-time workers running the various pieces of machinery, and pressing buttons to listen to recordings that explained what the heck we were looking at. There were perhaps twenty of these information locations, or stopping points, throughout.
In addition to these stops and the behemoth that was the main factory, there were plenty of other cool things to see. This train was used to transport heavy loads of material to and from the factory. It's also the only train I've seen that needs to be weed-wacked.
And here's the gas blowing engine room that housed a dozen twenty-four foot flywheels.
What I came away with from the tour were two things. One, if I had studied all the information made available to us I would have left with a pretty good idea of how steel was made. But that was hard for me to do when everything was so big that all I wanted to do was look up in awe. They really did a great job explaining each process, though.
Second, and more importantly, I came away with a complete admiration for the men and women who made a living at Bethlehem Steel. The day we visited was a warm day and the heat was absolutely radiating off the place. Here I was, leisurely poking along in shorts and a t-shirt, stopping to sip water every twenty feet or so, and still I was sweating. To work up to a ten hour summer day - covered in protective gear, handling red hot molten iron, and dealing with boilers that reached 3,000 degrees in temperature - is something I'll never have to experience in my lifetime. I cannot imagine being in those conditions and having to do something like climb this 100+ foot ladder that ascends the outside of a tower, but there were days when it was somebody's job to do just that.
Those were a class of worker unlike any other, and the next time I get frustrated at my job because the copier is jammed or because someone didn't empty their k-cup from the coffee machine, I'm going to remember these men and woman who, among all Bethlehem Steel's 15 locations, regularly battled inferno conditions to produce enough steel each day to build a US battleship.
And I'm going to consider myself lucky and happily continue about my day.
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