08/21/2026
Coatesville has a claim to fame that most people driving through on Route 30 have no idea about.
In 1825, a 31-year-old woman named Rebecca Lukens lost her husband Charles unexpectedly. She was pregnant with her sixth child at the time. On his deathbed, Charles asked her to take over the family's ironworks on the Brandywine River, the business her own father had built. She said yes.
For the next 22 years, she ran it. She rebuilt the mill after devastating floods, held the company together through a national financial panic in 1837, and fought off family disputes over the business, all while running one of the only iron mills in the country led by a woman. Under her, the mill became a major supplier of boiler plate for the locomotives and railroads reshaping the country at the time.
She stepped down in 1847 due to declining health and died in 1854. But the company she saved kept her name for the next 150 years. It became Lukens Steel, stayed independent and family-run for generations, and was eventually listed on the New York Stock Exchange, all the way until Bethlehem Steel purchased it in 1998. In 1944, the U.S. Navy even named a ship after her, the Liberty Ship SS Rebecca Lukens.
Her mill still stands today as a National Historic Landmark District, home to the National Iron & Steel Heritage Museum.
In 1994, on the 200th anniversary of her birth, Fortune Magazine and the National Business Hall of Fame made it official: Rebecca Lukens was America's first female industrialist and CEO of an industrial company. Born (disputed; possibly Marlboro township), married, widowed, and legendary, all in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
Next time you drive through Coatesville, think about Rebecca Lukens and about what she means to so many people.
Wendy Caruso | Coldwell Banker Realty
Your Local Area Expert
📞 610-316-1108
📧 [email protected]
🌐 wendycarusorealtor.com
