ArcelorMittal (Lukens Steel Company, Lukens Iron and Steel Company, The Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory)

The Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory, later renamed Lukens Iron and Steel Company, was founded by Isaac Pennock in 1810 to take advantage of regional access to the raw materials of the iron industry. It was leased to son-in-law Dr. Charles Lukens in 1816, and after his death in 1825 was run by his wife, Rebecca Pennock Lukens, until her death in 1854. She pushed the business into rolling boiler plate, an important new product in the steam age that reached national markets because of the factory's proximity to the Pennsylvania Railroad's Main Line. The complex now provides the best opportunity in the region to see the evolution of the steel industry from its modest beginnings to the utterly heroic scale of the early twentieth century. The plant had its beginnings in the vicinity of 1st Avenue on the east bank of Brandywine Creek. Now the south side of the city is lined with the immense blackened hulks of the foundries, rolling mills, and other structures of the Lukens works where, at its height, more than 4,000 men were employed. Portions remain in use as a boutique steel producer with fewer than 1,000 workers in the ArcelorMittal group. The site is also the projected location of the National Iron and Steel Museum.