In 1904 the John A. Roebling's Sons Company purchased 250 acres between the Delaware River and the railroad lines. They had been manufacturing wire rope in Trenton since 1850, and on this new land they built steel mills to supply their industry - Hot Mills, Steel and Copper Wire Mills, and Woven Wire Fabrics Mills, and the support industry to maintain them. Because the new mills were 10 miles from Trenton and the area had no housing, the Company built a town as well for their workers. The town was laid out as a rectangle. The streets were paved, and wide, and the homes were brick. There was a Bank and a General Store. Through 3 generations of Roeblings, the Company played a vital role in American industry for over a century. An 1848 suspension aquaduct in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania still stands today. Wire rope was in the first Otis Elevators in 1862. National success started with the contract to construct the Brooklyn Bridge. They supplied the wire cable used to build the Panama Canal. Their wire products are part of the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, Marconi Radio Antenna Towers, the Bear Mountain Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, as well as numerous other structures familar to us all. From the Civil War through WWII the wire industry was an essential part of our nation's war production. In the early '50's the company was sold, but the Roebling Division continued to supply wire cable until 1974 when the plants were closed.
Today the steel mills are a Superfund Site, while the town continues on its own, a community proud of its heritage but working towards the future.