Coplay, PA – Just a Stop at the Kiln

Table of Contents

• Coplay and its Kilns (You Gotta Be Kilning Me!)
• Now That I’m in Coplay What Else is There to Do? (Kilning Me Softly With His Cementitious Material)

Coplay and its Kilns (You Gotta Be Kilning Me!)

On my return from Bethlehem, PA to Ottawa, Ontario I made a stop in Allentown for breakfast. Sitting at a diner table, waiting for my hashbrowns and bacon, I mapped out a few stops I could hit along the way back home. I clicked on the town of Coplay and found images of massive cement kilns, as an engineer I had no choice but to stop.

The town of Coplay is part of the Lehigh Valley, a historically industrial region of Pennsylvania once renowned for its cement and steel production, the former industry still thriving. The land the town now occupies was bought from the heirs of William Penn, the great Pennsylvania landowner.  Unlike neighboring Bethlehem, the steel town, Coplay was a cement girl and boy, just like the Bethlehem steel stacks, did she produce! The Kilns of Coplay, a National Historic Site, were built in 1892 to produce Portland cement. They were shut down in 1904 as the industry had shifted from a model of vertical kilns, like those Coplay, to horizontal ones which were more efficient, hence one could say Coplay Kilns were the granddaddy of the US Portland cement industry. The site of the kilns was selected due to two factors; geology and logistics. The Lehigh Valley contained much of the stone needed for cement production (rocks with lime, silica, and alumina) and it was part of a great transportation network. At one point, the Lehigh valley produced 72% of the cement products produced in the USA

So why care about these 9 ruinous kilns, one may ask? I said the same thing as I pulled up to Saylor Park – the open air museum where the kilns are located. There are informative signs on site that detail the history of the cement industry in the valley and the history of the kilns. From these signs I learned that these are the last kilns of their kind still left standing in the country. Adding to the sense of ruinous wonder, the kilns are fenced off to the public. Pathways and a futuristic shaped bubble building zigzagged into the kilns but falling brick had smashed the windows of the hut and those pathways are closed to the public pending the stabilization of the kilns.

Descending from the massive kilns towards the Lehigh river you will see the remnants of an old railroad that once transported the product to market and a cleared path along the watercourse that once was a canal towpath or the rail-bed itself.

Now That I’m in Coplay What Else is There to Do? (Kilning Me Softly With His Cementitious Material)

Glad you asked! If you haven’t had your share of cement related history, you could visit the Atlas cement museum. Atlas, like Bethlehem Steel, was once one of the largest producers of its kind in the world.

If you are sick of the cement talk you could cross the Leigh River and walk/bike along the Canal Street Park pathway system. You will find many old mill buildings here, along with an old Hungarian hall. The Lehigh Valley has long been a hub for immigrants of Central and Eastern European descent.