Lackawanna Steel Company
| Public | |
| Industry | steel manufacturing, railroads, coal mining |
| Founded | 1840 |
| Founder | George W. Scranton, Seldon T. Scranton, William Henry |
| Defunct | 1922 purchased; 1982 ceased operation |
| Headquarters | Scranton, Pennsylvania (1840–1902) Lackawanna, New York (1902–1982) |
|
Area served
|
United States |
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Key people
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William Walker Scranton, Joseph H. Scranton, Moses Taylor, William Liston Brown |
| Products | Steel, coke |
| Services | Rail transport |
| Parent | Bethlehem Steel after 1922 |
| Subsidiaries | Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad |
The Lackawanna Steel Company was an American steel manufacturing company that existed as an independent company from 1840 to 1922, and as a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel company from 1922 to 1983. Founded by the Scranton family, it was once the second-largest steel company in the world (and the largest company outside the U.S. Steel trust).Scranton, Pennsylvania developed around the company's original location. When the company moved to a suburb of Buffalo, New York, in 1902, it stimulated the founding of the city of Lackawanna.
At the beginning of the 1800s, the Lackawanna Valley in Pennsylvania was rich in anthracite coal and iron deposits. Brothers George W. Scranton and Seldon T. Scranton moved to the valley in 1840 and settled in the five-house town of Slocum's Hollow (now Scranton) to establish an iron forge. Although Europeans had been making steel for nearly three centuries, the processes for creating blister steel and crucible steel were slow and extremely expensive.
The Scrantons focused instead on manufacturing pig iron using a blast furnace. They wanted to take advantage of a recent technological innovation in iron smelting, the "hot blast". Developed in Scotland in 1828, the hot blast preheats air before it is pumped through molten iron, substantially lowering fuel needs. The Scrantons also intended to experiment with using anthracite coal to make steel, rather than existing methods which used charcoal or bituminous coal.
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