In 1830, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company made possible the transport of Anthracite from the Carbon County coal regions to Easton and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. In time, iron mills flanked the Lehigh River fueled by anthracite. In 1854, the Thomas Iron Company was put into blast and produced anthracite iron under the guidance of David Thomas.

During that same period, canal boat builder, Asa Packer (1805-1879) of Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, sought a faster method of transporting Anthracite by means of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

In 1857, Packer charged Robert H. Sayre (1824-1907) with a dual role as chief engineer and general superintendent to construct and operate the Lehigh Valley Railroad headquarters at the junction of the North Penn Railroad in South Bethlehem.

During the 1850s, only two types of iron rails were available to American railroads: high-cost, high-quality imports and low-cost, low-quality American-made rails. Between 1852 and 1853, the Lehigh Valley Railroad successfully connected Mauch Chunk to Easton and in those early years, Sayre purchased rails from the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company in Scranton, Pa.

This company was controlled by the same group of entrepreneurs who owned the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which competed with the Lehigh Valley as a carrier of anthracite coal used to make iron.

Every purchase of Lackawanna rails by the Lehigh Valley was in effect providing a subsidy to one of its most effective competitors. Sayre realized that the Lehigh Valley Railroad required its own source of iron rails and set out to find a solution.

Born in 1821 in Nazareth, Pa., Augustus Wolle was a prominent Moravian merchant in Bethlehem and one of the founders of the Thomas Iron Company in 1854. On April 8, 1857, Wolle procured the incorporation of "The Saucona Iron Company" and planned to build it along the Saucon Creek. The economic Panic of 1857, however, slowed progress on building the foundry. Directed to purchase the Saucona Iron Company from Wolle, Robert Sayre transformed it into the "Bethlehem Rolling Mills and Iron Company" with capital from the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

In 1860, Alfred Hunt presided over the board of directors, which included Asa Packer. Board members changed the title to the "Bethlehem Iron Company" and directed it to be built along the Lehigh River with access to the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

To design and supervise the operation of the plant, Sayre convinced the most inventive of all American iron masters, at the time, John Fritz, to come to Bethlehem.

A native of Chester County, John Fritz (1822-1913) had served as the general superintendent of the Cambria Iron Company at Johnstown, Pa. Since 1853, Fritz transformed Cambria from a struggling iron producing company into a profitable plant through Fritz's invention of the "Three-High" rail mill. For the first time, his concept made possible the mass-production of uniformly high-quality iron railroad rails at a low price.

Sayre used inducements of a high salary, stock options and the stellar reputation of Moravian schools, which convinced Fritz to come to Bethlehem with his family.

In the summer of 1862, while Fritz supervised the construction of the works at the Bethlehem Iron Company, the Lehigh River overflowed its banks in a destructive "freshet" that severely damaged the iron building and washed away part of the shoreline. By Jan. 5, 1863, the first blast furnace produced rails at the Bethlehem Iron Company. Through his design and experience, Fritz made the Bethlehem Iron Company the most modern and efficient of all American mills.

During the third year of the Civil War in 1864, the Union Army desperately needed a facility to re-roll damaged rails in the heart of the Confederacy. David McCallum, director and general manger of the Military Railroads, authorized John Fritz to design and construct a rail rolling mill at Chattanooga, Tenn.. Fritz sent his brother, William to supervise the erection and operation of the mill. Completed in 1864, the iron rails produced at the Chattanooga rolling mill kept General Sherman's troops and supplies fluid and contributed to the Union's conquest of Atlanta.

Under the leadership of Sayre and Fritz during the last half of the 19th century, the Bethlehem Iron Company continued to prosper and grow - the only one of the Lehigh Valley's iron companies to become a steelmaker. By 1880, the Bethlehem Iron Company's growth had created thousands of jobs, many of which were filled by immigrants from central, southern and eastern Europe who settled in South Bethlehem.

The Bethlehem Iron Company was transformed by Fritz's innovative genius into the largest and most efficient steel forging plant in the world. This forging plant produced the cannon, armor plate and propulsion machinery parts for America's first modern warships, which played a leading role in winning the Spanish-American War and made the United States a world power.

Like Sayre, Fritz left many legacies to the people of modern Bethlehem. He bequeathed the funds that made it possible to found the Bethlehem Public Library. At Lehigh University, he designed and endowed the Fritz Engineering Laboratory, which became a world leader in research of high-rise building structures.

Robert H. Sayre and John Fritz represent the generation of innovative entrepreneurs who crafted Bethlehem into a dynamic industrial city. Their legacy includes the cultural and charitable institutions that serve its inhabitants in the 21st century.