The Empire Steel and Iron Company was incorporated in New Jersey on March 14, 1899, for the purpose of merging a number of smaller iron furnaces that were being left behind by the contemporary formation of large integrated steel companies during the so-called first merger movement. The core facility was the Crane Iron Works of Catasauqua, Pa., which had pioneered large-scale smelting with anthracite coal in 1840 but was now facing obsolescence. Other old anthracite furnaces brought into the combination included Oxford Furnace in N.J., Henry Clay Furnaces in Reading, Pa., Macungie Furnace and Topton Furnace in Pa., Gem Furnace at Shenandoah, Va., Victoria Furnace at Goshen, Va., and Cherokee Furnace in North Carolina The new company also controlled the Victoria Coal & Coke Company at Caperton, W.Va., the Mount Hope Mining Company in Morris County, N.J., other iron ore properties at Wheatfield, Pa., Virginia and North Carolina, and a number of short railroads serving the mines and furnaces. The company headquarters was moved from New York to Catasauqua in 1900.

Combination could not reverse the obsolescence of many of these small 19th century properties, The southern operations were first to go, followed by some of those in Pennsylvania. On July 1, 1922, the Empire Steel and Iron Company was acquired by the Replogle Steel Company, which operated the Wharton Furnaces in N.J. This merger, too, failed to halt the downward trend. The Warren Pipe & Foundry Corporation was incorporated in Delaware on April 8, 1927, as successor to the Replogle Steel Company. The Empire Steel and Iron Company was merged into its operating subsidiary, the Warren Pipe & Foundry Company, which had operated in Phillipsburg, N.J. since the 1850s. Contraction continued, with the Oxford Furnace dismantled in 1927, the West Virginia coal properties and last railroads sold in 1929, the Crane Furnaces dismantled in 1930, and the Wharton Furnaces in 1932. As with many declining industries, the corporate charter was recycled as a conglomerate. The Warren Pipe & Foundry Corporation was renamed Shahmoon Industries, Inc., in 1956, Shire National Corporation in 1973, and Stacey Industries, Inc. in 1985.

The last original operating property once owned by the Empire Steel and Iron Company was the Mount Hope Mine at Mount Hope, N.J., operated by the Mount Hope Mining Company, which lasted until 1972. The mine reopened briefly from October 26, 1977 to February 28, 1978, on a contract to supply Bethlehem Steel, after which it was allowed to flood.