Lukens Steel Company

Lukens Steel Company was operated as a sole proprietor steel production business under Rebecca Lukens in Coatsville, Pennsylvania, from 1825 to 1840. It incorporated in 1890 to grow to become one of the major plate steel producing corporations in the 20th century.

From the description of Lukens Steel Company collection, 1898-1989. (Pennsylvania State University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 243699141

The Lukens Steel Company was incorporated in Pennsylvania on January 17, 1917, as successor to the Lukens Iron & Steel Company of 1890. It was renamed Lukens, Inc., on April 14, 1982, and reincorporated in Delaware on January 28, 1987. Lukens is a medium-sized producer of specialty steel products and one of the top three U.S. producers of steel plate.

From the description of Records, 1798-1993. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122458665

The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates. Lukens operated continuously at its Coatesville, Pennsylvania site since 1810 and was one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century iron works that once dotted Southeastern Pennsylvania. It was controlled by members of the Pennock, Lukens and Huston families in direct succession for over 180 years.

After 80 years as a partnership of the Lukens and Huston families, the firm was incorporated as the Lukens Iron and Steel Company on February 5, 1890. The company made some unsuccessful attempts to integrate backwards and forwards as part of a general industry trend. Lukens purchased the Alleghany Ore and Iron Company of Virginia in 1907. Alleghany owned two blast furnaces and reserves of low-phosphorus iron-ore. Through Alleghany, Lukens also acquired a one-half interest in the Victoria Coal & Coke Company of Caperton, West Virginia. However, none of these properties were ever effectively integrated with Lukens operations in Coatesville. The last Alleghany furnace closed in 1923, and the mines in 1925. Alleghany long remained an inactive subsidiary owning real estate and ore reserves.

To finance World War I generated growth, the company was recapitalized and reincorporated as the Lukens Steel Company on January 17, 1917. After the war, the steel industry entered a period of stagnation. The American shipbuilding industry, long a Lukens mainstay, collapsed. In 1925, both Huston brothers agreed to step down from active management in favor of younger men. The only person in the family capable of leading the company was A. F. Huston's son-in-law Robert W. Wolcott (1892-1982). Wolcott was an aggressive salesman who cultivated new markets, turning Lukens into a specialized manufacturer of hot rolled plates and fabricated products made from plates.

Wolcott created two new subsidiaries. The By-Products Steel Corporation (1927) created semi-finished shapes from steel plates. Lukenweld, Inc. (1930) cut and fabricated shapes from plates by arc-welding, including the blocks and frames for diesel engines, machine bases, and gears. In 1930, Lukens also joined with The International Nickel Company to develop "clad steel", a sandwich of steel plate faced with thin layers of resistant alloys. Clad steels proved an economical alternative for pipes and vessels used to handle caustics or sensitive products like prepared foods.

By the late sixties, Lukens was manufacturing 50 percent more steel with 20 percent fewer workers. At the same time, Lukens began a modest diversification effort. It purchased Clayton Skiffs, Inc., a New Jersey manufacturer of small pleasure boats, in 1959 to control an outlet for light steel plate. Lukens acquired Natweld Steel Products, Ltd., of Rexdale, Ontario, a fabricator similar to Lukenweld, and renamed it Canadian Lukens, Ltd. in 1968.

Lukens' production reached an all-time peak of 897,000 tons in 1969. The retirement of Chairman Charles Huston, Jr. in 1974 ended over 180 years of direct family management. Charles L. Huston III, the last member of the Lukens-Huston family to serve with the company, retired in 1991.

In the subsequent collapse and restructuring of the American steel industry, Lukens undertook a brief and ill-advised diversification program but managaged to hold its own as a specialty producer, although with a fraction of its former workforce. It was renamed Lukens, Inc. in 1987, and in 1998 its remaining assets were sold to Bethlehem Steel Corporation, becoming its Lukens Plate Division.

Following the Bethlehem Steel bankruptcy of February 15, 2001, the Lukens plant was among assets sold to International Steel Group, Inc., of Cleveland on May 7, 2003.

From the description of Corporate records, 1874-1972 (bulk, 1933-1969). (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122648790

The Lukens Steel Company was incorporated in Pennsylvania on January 17, 1917, as successor to the Lukens Iron & Steel Company of 1890. It was renamed Lukens, Inc., on April 14, 1982, and reincorporated in Delaware on January 28, 1987. Lukens is a medium-sized producer of specialty steel products and one of the top three U.S. producers of steel plate.

Lukens has operated continuously on its Coatesville, Pa., site since 1810. Its founder, a young Quaker entrepreneur named Isaac Pennock, had constructed the Federal Slitting Mill on Buck Run, about four miles south of Coatesville, in the early 1790s. In 1810 Pennock purchased property at the site of present-day Coatesville and moved his operation there, renaming it the Brandywine Iron Works & Nail Factory. Pennock's son-in-law, Dr. Charles Lukens, entered the business in 1816. The firm initially produced nails and bar iron for blacksmiths, but in 1818 it rolled the first boiler plate in America.

After Lukens' death in 1825, the operation was directed by his widow, Rebecca Webb Pennock Lukens, the first woman in the United States to engage in the iron industry. Rebecca Lukens brought the firm through the boom-and-bust years of the Jacksonian Era. Her son-in-law, Abraham Gibbons, Jr., joined the firm as A. Gibbons, Jr., & Co. in 1847. He was joined by another son-in-law, Dr. Charles Huston, as Gibbons & Huston in 1849. Gibbons retired in 1855, and Rebecca Lukens' nephew, Charles Penrose, Jr., joined in 1859. At this time the works were renamed the Lukens Rolling Mill in honor of Dr. and Mrs. Lukens. The firm was incorporated as the Lukens Iron & Steel Company on February 5, 1890, with control remaining in the Huston family.

Under Dr. Huston and his sons, Lukens became a nationally-known specialty manufacturer of iron and steel plates. The plant expanded rapidly after 1890, when the 120-inch three-high universal plate mill was installed. A 140-inch mill was added in 1902, followed in 1918 by a four-high, 206-inch mill which remained the world's largest for over forty years.

In the 1930s Lukens joined with International Nickel to develop "clad steels," coating steel plates with thin, corrosion-resistant finishes. These found wide use in containers and pressure vessels for the growing petroleum and chemical industries, and in the nuclear industry from the Manhattan Project onward.

The retirement of Charles Lukens Huston, Jr., in 1974 ended over 180 years of direct family management. As the steel industry collapsed under foreign competition in the 1970s and 80s, Lukens began diversifying into manufacturing, particularly with the purchase of General Steel Industries in 1982. Lukens successfully weathered the shake-out of firms by modernizing plant and cultivating specialized markets, and in the 1990s returned to concentrating on its core business. However, the move into stainless steel proved unsuccessful in the long term, and Lukens was merged into the Bethlehem Steel Corporation on May 29, 1998.

From the description of Agency history record. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122573163