JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – A long legacy of U.S. industrial manufacturing winds along the Conemaugh River, through facilities in Johnstown that decades ago belonged to one corporation.

Some of those buildings in Johnstown even predate Bethlehem Steel Corp.’s 20th-century stronghold, when its forerunner, Cambria Iron Works, pioneered modern steelmaking methods that contributed to the expansion of the nation’s railroad network.

Johnstown’s manufacturing past is evidenced in those buildings, but they are not just Rust Belt relics.

Many of the facilities that Bethlehem left behind when it ended its Johnstown operations in 1992 are occupied – not by one major corporation employing thousands of people, but by an array of businesses, each employing hundreds of people and producing industrial materials for the nation’s 21st-century growth.

Among the newest companies to establish a presence in one of Johnstown’s former Bethlehem buildings is Solid Platforms Inc.

In January, CEO Jason Lammertin hosted a grand opening of the company’s manufacturing site in Johnstown’s West End, in an old Cambria Iron Works and Bethlehem Steel site at 1365 Broad St.

Solid Platforms Inc., based outside Chicago, was established in 1990. Its union carpenters erect and dismantle scaffolding for contractors on major projects including theme parks, stadiums, data centers and power plants all over the country, Lammertin said.

The company used to import its scaffolding until President Donald Trump placed tariffs on goods from China in recent years. The change enabled the company to not only erect the scaffolding, but also expand into manufacturing it in the U.S. more cost-efficiently and in a more timely way, he said – specifically in Johnstown.

“The location is strategic because if you look at all of our offices and where we are going – between the East Coast, central states and the South – Johnstown is smack in the middle,” he said. “So if we are going to manufacture our own stuff, what better place to put it than in the center?”

Between 30 and 50 union carpenters work at Solid Platform’s Johnstown site per day, but Lammertin said he foresees that number burgeoning to keep pace with projects.

The company, comprising a total of 1,000 employees across 15 locations nationwide, is currently erecting scaffolding for projects at sites including the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel plants, Disney theme park projects in Florida, and the construction of the Tennessee Titans’ new NFL stadium in Nashville.

“Those 30 to 50 (workers in Johnstown) are going to quadruple in the next 12 months,” he said. “The more we add people into the fold of making the scaffolding, we are building these ‘super crews’ to go and undertake these jobs.”

Lammertin said he is pleased to have established a new manufacturing use in a building that had once been Bethlehem Steel Corp.’s “car shop” building, where axles were fixed to rail cars.

“I’m very much into the history of steelmaking, and how it was when Johnstown was formed – what type of products were there, what facilities were there,” he said. “I can map out pretty much anything and everywhere between the Franklin Works, Cambria Works and the Lower Works of Bethlehem Steel. I was always admiring the culture and what was still left there.”

Less than half a mile from Solid Platforms’ facility, a 638,000-square-foot mill continues to be a top employer in Cambria County.

In 2019, Liberty Steel acquired the Johnstown Wire Technologies mill, and remains a producer of many types of steel wire used to modernize the nation’s infrastructure.

Mark Critz, executive director of the Johnstown Redevelopment Authority, said the mill is expanding into an Iron Street property owned by the authority.

“Operations at the wire mill have really continued there since Bethlehem closed, I believe,” Critz said. “Now they rent from us on Iron Street. They will be bringing in a new operation to their main factory and needed the space. What exactly it is, I couldn’t tell you, but they are increasing the amount of work they are doing in the shop.”

Liberty Wire company officials did not respond to requests from The Tribune-Democrat for information.

The main campus of JWF Industries at 84 Iron St. was once part of Bethlehem Steel’s Lower Works facility.

While manufacturing products for the U.S. defense sector has been a pillar of JWF Industries’ work through its 37-year history, founder Bill Polacek said the company is also seeing more contracts from private-sector customers, in part because recent tariffs on imports have driven more manufacturing to be completed domestically.

“We are seeing work that would have been done in Mexico now coming to us,” he said. “Some of that work is in the artificial intelligence space.”

JWF has begun manufacturing custom ISO containers used to house computers for AI data centers.

“The AI contract will provide work for the next 10 years,” he said. “Beyond that, it’s kind of hard to predict.”

Tariffs have also led to more work for JWF in airline ground transportation equipment. A company that in the past has sourced parts from JWF and Mexico has recently begun relying entirely on JWF, Polacek said.

The new contracts in AI and airline ground equipment together will add between 60 and 70 jobs to JWF’s current workforce of 420.

“That’s a big expansion,” he said. “We started hiring, have moved people from temporary employment to permanent, and will continue hiring throughout the year, because the ramp-up will happen more in the third quarter.”

And new work for JWF means more work for its subcontractors, including CSC Welding and Fabrication, located at 1075 River Ave. in a former general store section of Bethlehem Steel Corp.’s facilities in Johnstown.

“Betwen JB Welding (in Windber), MJ Daniels Trucking and Metal Fabrication and CSC, our new contracts are probably increasing those companies by 20 people, so my plan is not just to grow JWF, but to grow our suppliers to handle more business,” Polacek said.

Further east from JWF’s headquarters, in downtown Johnstown, Gautier Steel manufactures rolled carbon steel, sharp-cornered squares and alloy flats.

“Gautier has done a tremendous job diversifying and building a niche for themselves,” Critz said.

In Johnstown’s Moxham neighborhood, vacuum truck manufacturer GapVax has recently expanded its facilities located on Central Avenue, including past facilities of U.S. Steel’s Johnstown operation.

Like Bethlehem, U.S. Steel had mills in Johnstown, but closed in 1984 with the contraction of the steel industry.

GapVax has recently purchased all the remaining property available around its site, Critz said. GapVax company officials were out of town attending a trade show and could not immediately speak about that development.

Korns Galvanizing is located next to GapVax, and North American Höganäs – which boasts a title as the world’s leading manufacturer of metal powders for powder metallurgy – has a continued presence and investment in the Moxham community.

Although manufacturing companies have revitalized many of the facilities left behind by Bethlehem and U.S. Steel, there are many others that remain vacant.

However, Critz said, the Johnstown Redevelopment Authority is working toward transforming parcels formerly belonging to Bethlehem into an urban industrial park.

Construction work began last August on a 2,000-foot connector road from Iron Street to the hillside property in the city’s Minersville neighborhood, where approximately 25 usable acres of land present opportunity on an 115-acre site that was home to Bethlehem Steel’s Rosedale/Lower Ore Yard and Matterhorn tracts.

“We hope we can populate it with businesses,” Critz said.

Reposted with permission

Photos by The Tribune Democrat