Philadelphia’s Pencoyd Iron Works: Forging Along the Schuylkill River

Established on the Schuylkill River in 1852, Philadelphia’s Pencoyd Iron Works was a global leader in structural steel and wrought iron for more than eight decades. Innovative American bridge designers Squire Whipple, John Murphy, C. Conrad Schneider, Paul Wolfel and John Waddell established lifelong connections with Pencoyd. The ironworks gained an international reputation building the famous Atbara Bridge in Sudan, as well as for projects in Mexico, Japan, Kenya and Taiwan. Pencoyd built the first elevated railways in New York, Chicago and Boston. The tallest structure in New York at the time, the Manhattan Life Insurance Building, used Pencoyd’s engineering innovation to accomplish the previously unthinkable. Author Kevin Righter constructs the immense history of the Pencoyd Iron Works.