Lehigh Crane Iron Company.

The Lehigh Crane Iron Company was one of the first companies to succeed in smelting iron with anthracite coal on a commercial scale.

The Lehigh Crane Iron Company was chartered on January 10, 1839, under the laws of Pennsylvania. Sponsors were the founders of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, and several of their associates. The LC&N had been experimenting with anthracite smelting since 1823, at first directly and later by offering subsidies of coal and water power to others. None of these American experiments had yet achieved success, when the LC&N managers learned of the successful use of the hot blast at George Crane's Yniscedwyn Iron Works in South Wales.

Erskine Hazard journeyed to Wales in the fall of 1838 and secured the services of David Thomas (1794-1882), the ironmaster who had helped design and operate the Crane Furnaces. Thomas was induced to emigrate with the promise of a handsome salary. The Lehigh Crane Iron Company was organized upon Hazard's return and secured a site on the LC&N's canal at "Craneville", now Catasauqua, Pa. Thomas had much of the machinery contracted for in Britain before departing in May 1839. Ground was broken in August, and the first furnace blown in on July 4, 1840. Although a furnace at Pottsville, Pa., had gone into commercial production earlier, the Crane Company was conducted on a larger scale with superior designs.

Four more furnaces followed: #2 in 1842, #3 in 1846, and #4 and #5 in 1849. A sixth furnace was built in the 1860s. Thomas resigned in 1855 to set up his own Thomas Iron Company across the river, but he retained his business affiliations with the LC&N officers. The company was renamed the Crane Iron Company in 1872. In 1881, two new furnaces were erected, and furnaces #1-3 were demolished.

By 1880 the anthracite iron industry was in relative decline. The locus of the iron and steel industry had shifted westward to take advantage of Great Lakes ores and large deposits of coking coal. The location of the Crane Iron Company prevented it from keeping up with developments elsewhere in the industry. The company was hobbled by the depression of 1893-1898, and one furnace was dismantled.

The Crane Iron Company was acquired in 1899 by the Empire Steel & Iron Company, a holding company formed to consolidate small iron mills. By 1914 two more furnaces had been shut down. The company was purchased by the Replogle Steel Company in 1922, but decline continued. Production came to a halt in 1930, and the last furnace was dismantled.