The Phoenix Steel Company began in the late eighteenth century as a manufacturer of cut nails. It later became a major producer of railroad rails and iron and steel structural members. The Claymont Division of the Phoenix Steel Corporation was established in 1960 when the company purchased the Claymont, Delaware steel plant from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

Construction on the plant began in 1917, when brothers William Penn Worth (1856-1923) and J. Sharpless Worth (1851-1922) formed the Worth Steel Company. Built along the Delaware River in Claymont, Delaware, the new steel plant produced basic open-hearth steel and primarily specialized in tank, ship, and boiler plate. The plant continued to be operated by the Worth family until 1951, when it was sold to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I).

CF&I invested over $10 million in modernizing the plant to meet the demands of an evolving steel market. Despite this, the plant was not a profitable investment for the company. In six of ten years of operation under CF&I management, the steel plant lost money and remained fundamentally unchanged from when the company purchased the operation in 1951. On October 1, 1960, CF&I took an after tax loss of $2.3 million when it sold the Claymont steel plant to the Phoenix Steel Corporation.

Phoenix Steel purchased the Claymont operation to combine and consolidate plate production after its Harrisburg plant suffered extensive financial losses throughout the late 1950s. Yet, despite investing over $4 million in a new heat treat plant and finishing line at Claymont, the plant continued to accumulate losses. In the early 1960s, Phoenix Steel management employed numerous cost-cutting measures to curb operating losses and, in 1968, implemented a $55 million modernization campaign that more than doubled production capacity.

With the company still hemorrhaging money in the early 1970s, upper management decided to undertake a complete rejuvenation of both the company’s facilities and personnel. In 1976, the “New” Phoenix Steel Corporation emerged, comprising new management teams in sales, engineering, production, administration, and marketing. French engineering conglomerate Creusot-Loire provided financial and technical assistance.

By 1983, Phoenix Steel and parent company Creusot-Loire reported steady financial losses, resulting in a bankruptcy filing the same year. In 2014, the plant’s new owners, Russian steel giant Evraz Group, announced its permanent closure.