The story of the Reading Iron Company begins in 1836, when four prominent industrialists—Benneville Keim, George Keim, James Whitaker, and Simon Seyfert—founded a modest operation known as Keim, Whitaker & Co. Along the banks of the Schuylkill River, at the foot of Seventh Street near present-day Neversink Mountain, they constructed a rolling mill and nail factory to take advantage of the newly built Philadelphia & Reading Railroad and the adjacent Schuylkill Canal. This prime location allowed the fledgling company to access coal, ore, and market routes essential to industrial growth. It was also here that Berks County saw its first large stationary steam engine installed, signaling the dawn of Reading’s industrial era. By 1846, the firm became known as Seyfert, McManus & Co., and in 1862 it formally incorporated as the Reading Iron Works—a name that would soon become synonymous with industrial might and innovation.
In its early decades, the company expanded steadily. A tube mill was added in 1848, followed by Furnace No. 1 in 1853 and Furnace No. 2 in 1874. The Scott Foundry and Steam Forge, constructed in 1862, played a crucial role during the Civil War, manufacturing artillery and later producing cannons for the U.S. military. The Sheet Mill, built in 1865, added flat iron products to the company’s growing portfolio. By the late 19th century, the Reading Iron Works had become one of the largest employers in the region. In 1880, it employed over 2,000 workers, paying over $1 million in wages—a substantial figure for its time.
Despite its growth, financial troubles led to the company’s insolvency by the late 1880s. On July 1, 1889, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company acquired the bankrupt Reading Iron Works at a foreclosure sale, reported at $150,000, with the transaction executed through attorney William P. Bard. A new corporate entity—the Reading Iron Company—was organized on August 12, 1889, to take over the operations of the failed enterprise and usher in a new phase of industrial ambition. This reorganization marked a pivotal moment for the company and the city’s industrial base.
The newly formed Reading Iron Company quickly pursued aggressive expansion and modernization. It acquired the Keystone Furnaces, situated in the northwest section of the city near the Lebanon Valley Railroad Bridge—today roughly paralleled by the Warren Street Bypass (Route 12). It went on to purchase the Montour Rolling Mills in Danville in 1895 and acquired the Crumwold Furnace at Emaus that same year. Additional rolling mills were added throughout the city in locations such as Clinton Street, Oley Street, and Ninth Street.
The next major restructuring came in 1896, when the Reading Company was created as a holding company for the assets of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company. Among its most prominent industrial affiliates was the Reading Iron Company, now operated independently but financially tied to the Reading Company. Following the reorganization, equity holdings were formally booked at the Reading Company, and by 1908, official records describe the Reading Company as having a controlling interest in the Reading Iron Company. Though the Reading Iron Company remained a distinct corporate entity, it was now fully integrated into a vertically aligned industrial trust. Its sister affiliate, the Coal and Iron Company, managed vast anthracite reserves and collieries that supplied the raw materials critical for the Iron Company’s blast furnaces and rolling mills.
The early 20th century brought national prominence. The Reading Iron Company operated two large blast furnaces capable of producing 180,000 gross tons of pig and foundry iron annually, five rolling mills turning out over 200,000 gross tons of bar and puddled iron, and nine tube mills with an annual capacity of 150,000 gross tons. Its galvanized and plain wrought iron pipes were sold for use in gas, steam, water, hydraulic, and oil systems across the U.S. and abroad. The Scott Foundry produced massive forgings and artillery pieces, while the company also ran a nail factory in Pottstown, charcoal furnaces, and later added mills in Birdsboro and Columbia.
By the 1910s and 1920s, the company’s workforce exceeded 7,500 men—including 6,000 in Reading alone—with a combined payroll of $9 million, 80% of which stayed in the local economy. The company’s leadership changed hands from George F. Baer to Franklin C. Smink (who served until 1919), and then to Leon E. Thomas, who guided it through its final years of growth. Executives such as George Schuhmann attempted to modernize operations to meet new demands and compete with steel, which was rapidly eclipsing wrought iron in most industrial applications.
By 1936, the Reading Iron Company was still producing 60% of the nation’s puddled iron—an impressive feat in a dwindling market. However, the decline was inevitable. The rise of steel, the hardships of the Great Depression, and mounting debt rendered the company increasingly unsustainable. In 1938, the Reading Chamber of Commerce attempted to rally support for local acquisition and revival of the company, including the formation of a worker-owned cooperative supported by federal loans. These efforts failed.
By that summer, the last remaining major operation—the Seventh Street Tube Works—was shuttered and sold to Luria Brothers & Co., a national scrap dealer. It marked the end of an era. Other plants—on Oley Street, Ninth Street, and in Danville—had already closed. The capital investment that once totaled $12 million had depreciated to just $5 million.
Though its smokestacks are gone and its mills dismantled, the legacy of the Reading Iron Company continues to shape the city’s history. It once stood at the center of a vast industrial empire, linking the coal fields of Pennsylvania with the factories of the modern world. It employed thousands, fostered waves of immigrant labor, and helped build the infrastructure of an industrializing nation. Its footprint stretched from the base of Neversink Mountain to the Lebanon Valley, from Clinton Street to Emaus, from tube mills to cannon foundries—and its story remains one of the most important chapters in the industrial heritage of Reading, Pennsylvania.
Below: The old Spruce Street railroad bridge (foreground) and Jackson’s Locks (center), foot of South Sixth Street. Note the enormity of the Reading Iron Co. plant. This view looks north from the White House Hotel, traces of which can be found along the South Ninth Street hill.
Below: Reading Iron Co. (late 1930s), in the south end of Reading, between the Schuylkill Canal and the railroad.
Below: The Reading Iron Company acquired various plants, including the rolling mills, which were part of a significant expansion and modernization effort. The Ninth Street Rolling Mill on the south side of Hiester’s Lane (center of photo) were involved in the production of various iron and steel products, including large bar iron, round, square, and flat iron, as well as nail plates and band iron.
Below: Reading Company Lebanon Valley Bridge over the Schuylkill River and Reading Iron Company Keystone Furnace in the background in December 1938.
Below: Reading Iron Company’s Keystone Furnaces, east end of the Lebanon Valley Bridge (circa 1901). The old Lebanon Valley R.R. bridge appears in the distance, with a remnant of its west abutment still visible beside the present span on the south side. You can see this view from the West Shore Bypass beneath today’s Lebanon Valley R.R. Bridge, between Glenside and the Buttonwood Street Bridge.
Below: Reading Iron Company mill at W. Oley Street (lower left), 1926. In the foreground is the Schuylkill River and the Schuylkill Canal.
Below: South Seventh Street Iron Works.
