In the history of Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley, the iron industry is consistently identified as one of the most important forces of the early Industrial Revolution.
By the 19th century, iron had become the foundational material of a rapidly modernizing world—used in railroad tracks and steam engines, bridges and structural beams, cast-iron building façades, agricultural tools, pipes, and household goods like stoves, pots, and fences.
What many people don’t realize is that this industrial success did not rest solely on Bethlehem itself.
It depended on a constellation of smaller communities, quietly producing iron just beyond the city’s edge.
One of those places was Bingen.
