The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates in the United States. Lukens operated continuously at its Coatesville, Pennsylvania, site since 1810 and was one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century iron works that once dotted southeastern Pennsylvania. It was controlled by members of the Pennock, Lukens, and Huston families in direct succession for more than 180 years.

After eighty years as a partnership of the Lukens and Huston families, the firm was incorporated as the Lukens Iron and Steel Company on February 5, 1890. The company made some unsuccessful attempts to integrate backwards and forwards as part of a general industry trend. Lukens acquired coal properties in Harrison County, West Virginia, in 1902 as the Lukens Coal Company. Lukens purchased the Alleghany Ore and Iron Company of Virginia in 1907. Alleghany owned two blast furnaces and reserves of low-phosphorus iron ore. Through Alleghany, Lukens also acquired a one-half interest in the Victoria Coal & Coke Company of Caperton, West Virginia. However, none of these properties were ever effectively integrated with Lukens' operations in Coatesville. The Lukens Coal Company was sold in 1906, and the last Allegheny furnace closed in 1923, followed by the mines in 1925. Alleghany long remained an inactive subsidiary owning real estate and ore reserves.

To finance growth generated by World War I, the company was recapitalized and reincorporated as the Lukens Steel Company on January 17, 1917. In 1916, the United Engineering & Foundry Company began construction of a 206-inch, four-high mill partly designed by Charles Lukens Huston, and eight ninety-ton open hearths. This was the largest rolling mill in the world for many years, and could roll plates up to twenty-five inches thick and sixteen feet wide. The first plate was rolled on May 22, 1918. The output of the “Big Mill” was used in large marine boilers, one-piece crown and side sheets for locomotives, and foundation plates for skyscrapers.

After the war, the steel industry entered a period of stagnation. The American shipbuilding industry, long a Lukens mainstay, collapsed. In 1925, both Huston brothers agreed to step down from active management in favor of younger men. A.F. Huston (1852-1930) assumed the ceremonial post of chairman, and Charles Lukens Huston (1856-1951) remained vice president but relinquished direct control of operations. The only person in the family capable of leading the company was A.F. Huston’s son-in-law, Robert W. Wolcott (1892-1982), who was then managing the New Orleans branch office. Wolcott was an aggressive salesman who cultivated new markets, turning Lukens into a specialized manufacturer of hot-rolled plates and fabricated products made from plates.

Wolcott created two new subsidiaries. The By-Products Steel Corporation (1927) created semi-finished shapes from steel plates. Lukenweld, Inc. (1930) cut and fabricated shapes from plates by arc-welding, including the blocks and frames for diesel engines, machine bases, and gears. In 1930, Lukens also joined with the International Nickel Company to develop “clad steel,” a sandwich of steel plate faced with thin layers of resistant alloys. Clad steels proved an economical alternative for pipes and vessels used to handle caustics or sensitive products like prepared foods.

By the late 1960s, Lukens was manufacturing fifty percent more steel with twenty percent fewer workers. At the same time, Lukens began a modest diversification effort. It purchased Clayton Skiffs, Inc., a New Jersey manufacturer of small pleasure boats, in 1959 to control an outlet for light steel plate. Lukens acquired Natweld Steel Products, Ltd., of Rexdale, Ontario, a fabricator similar to Lukenweld, and renamed it Canadian Lukens, Ltd. in 1968. Lukens’ production reached an all-time peak of 897,000 tons in 1969. The retirement of chairman Charles Huston Jr. in 1974 ended more than 180 years of direct family management. Charles L. Huston III, the last member of the Lukens-Huston family to serve with the company, retired in 1991. The next two chief executives, W.E. Mullestein (1974-1978) and Charles A. Colson Jr. (1978-1981), had begun their careers in sales. In 1978, Lukens purchased the 110-inch rolling mill of the Alan Wood Steel Company of Conshohocken, which had failed the previous year. This facility was reopened on June 4, 1979, and produced light-gauge plate.

W. Robert Wilson became president in 1980 and CEO in 1981. Wilson was the first chief executive recruited from outside the company, and his tenure coincided with the collapse of the American steel industry in the recession of the early 1980s. Production fell precipitously from 722,000 tons in 1981 to 429,000 tons in 1993, although Lukens held its own as the number three maker of steel plate.

Wilson embarked on an extensive diversification program in 1981. The overall aim was to acquire manufacturing facilities that would use Lukens plate in fabricated products. The principal acquisition was General Steel Industries, Inc. of St. Louis. This firm had begun as the St. Louis Car Company, but had itself diversified as the market for rail-transit cars contracted. Through various divisions, GSI produced glass beads for reflective signs; crushers, vibrating screens, and other materials-handling equipment; rolling-mill parts; woven wire cloth; and plastic coatings for steel pipe. The acquisition was completed on March 31, 1982, when GSI was renamed Lukens General Steel Industries, Inc. To de-emphasize the steel business, the Lukens Steel Company was renamed Lukens, Inc. on April 14, 1982. Diversification continued with the purchase of the Superior Manufacturing company on October 1, 1984 and General Catholic Protection Services, Inc. on May 3, 1985. On January 28, 1987, Lukens, Inc. was converted to a holding company and reincorporated in Delaware.

The steel business was not altogether neglected, and a new automated control system was installed at Conshohocken in 1986, making it the most modern plate mill in the country. The fourth electric furnace was rebuilt in 1985, enabling Lukens to produce all its steel from a single furnace and retire its other three. However, in an attempt to streamline operations and cut costs, Wilson provoked a three-month strike by the United Steel Workers in the fall of 1991. One of the main points at issue was the industry’s practice of contracting out, the use of non-union workers to perform duties in the plant not directly tied to making steel. The board eventually withdrew its support, Wilson resigned, and W.R. Van Sant was named the new CEO in December. The strike was settled early in January 1992.

Van Sant returned to an emphasis on the company’s traditional reputation as a specialty manufacturer of steel plate and fabricated plate products. The divesture of manufacturing subsidiaries, which had begun during the last years of the Wilson administration, accelerated and was practically completed by 1993. Instead, Lukens concentrated in its core business by purchasing the Washington Steel Corporation, a stainless steel producer in March 1992. Still, management was unable to hold the forces reshaping the American steel industry at bay for more than a few years. Lukens, Inc. was sold to Bethlehem Steel Corporation on May 29, 1998, and became its Lukens Plant Division. Bethlehem in turn entered bankruptcy on February 15, 2001. Its viable assets, including the core of the old Lukens plant at Coatesville, were sold to the International Steel Group, Inc. of Cleveland on May 7, 2003.