The Worth Steel Company can trace its roots back to 1852. Sheshbazzar B. Worth (1807-1874) worked as a storekeeper and blacksmith at Embreeville, Pennsylvania. He formed a partnership with his friend, Hugh E. Steele (1815-1874), to operate the Laurel Iron Works near Mortonville, Pennsylvania. Between 1847 and 1852, Worth managed the Elk Iron Works in Cecil County, Maryland, for the Park family. He then reunited with Steele to purchase the Triadelphia Iron Works at Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in 1852. It was later renamed the Viaduct Iron Works.

In the late 1870s, the enterprise was taken over by Andrew Williams of Plattsburgh, New York, who reorganized it as the Coatesville Iron Company and manufactured pipes and plates.

William Penn Worth (1856-1923) and J. Sharpless Worth (1851-1922), the sons of Sheshbazzar B. Worth, built their own plate mills, the Brandywine Iron Works, near Coatesville in 1880. They then purchased the Viaduct Works in 1887.

The Viaduct Works was operated as the Coatesville Rolling Mill Company, and the Brandywine Iron Works were incorporated as the Worth Brothers Company in 1895. A tube works was constructed in 1900. The firms specialized in the manufacturing of high-grade boilers, tanks, and ship plates at the Brandywine Works and boiler tubes at the Viaduct Works. They were able to roll the widest plates then produced in America. The Worth brothers sold both facilities to the Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company in October 1915, and they became part of Bethlehem Steel in 1923.

In 1917, the two Worth brothers and three-valued employees formed the Worth Steel Company and constructed a new plant on the Delaware River at Claymont, Delaware. Two sons of William Penn Worth followed their father in the business: Edward H. Worth (1880-1952) and William A. Worth (1892-1983). The new company also specialized in ships, tanks, and boilerplates. The company continued to be operated by the Worth family until 1951, when it was sold to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, later to Phoenix Steel.