Coatesville City

City of Coatesville municipal offices are located at 1 City Hall Place, Coatesville PA 19320; phone: 610-384-0300.

Text below excerpted from: Chester County Place Names, Edward Pinkowski, 1962.

Coatesville was well-known as the home of the Brandywine Iron Works, where the first charcoal iron boiler plates in the United States were rolled about 1820, and its successor, Lukens Steel Company, the world's largest steel plate rolling mill. It was settled by a Scotchman, William Fleming, in 1714 and known about 1800 as Bridgetown, from the Bridge Tavern which stood on the northeast corner of the intersection of the Lancaster Turnpike and the road to Wagontown. In 1810 a real estate development just southeast of this intersection was called Coates Villa. The settlement was renamed Coatesville in 1812 for Moses Coates, a big landowner who became the first postmaster, and was incorporated as a borough in 1867. It operated as a borough until 1916. Then it became the first city in Chester County.

Coatesville Historic District

Text, below, was excerpted from a copy of the original National Register nomination document, 1986.

Significance

The Coatesville Historic District is important as western Chester County's principal commercial center and a locally noteworthy collection of architecture. As a result of the growth of the iron and steel industry, Coatesville became one of the largest commercial centers in the county. Coatesville's significance in commerce is reflected in a large concentration of commercial buildings in the Coatesville Historic District. It is also important for its mid-nineteenth century to early twentieth century architecture. It has the largest collection of Italianate commercial buildings in western Chester County and the largest collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century worker housing in the county.

During the 18th century the area, later known as Coatesville, was a self-contained agrarian community for the Fleming and Coates families. Their family homesteads, the Fleming House circa 1750 (544-546 Harmony St) and Brandywine Mansion circa 1750 (102 South First Ave) are the oldest structures in the district. Construction of the former is attributed to James Fleming, son of the progenitor William, who was one of the first settlers. William's grandson Peter Fleming built the Brandywine Mansion and in 1787 conveyed the property to Moses Coates.

Commercial development of Coatesville began in the early nineteenth century. Soon after 1800 the hamlet of Bridgetown was established at the intersection of First Avenue and Lincoln Highway. The first businesses in the area were built in this small village. Businesses spread east along East Lincoln Highway to Third Avenue after construction of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in 1833 provided the village with improved access to markets.

Industrial growth in Coatesville strongly shaped the development of the historic district. In 1810 Isaac Pennock and his partner, Jesse Kersey, bought the Brandywine Mansion and farm from Moses Coates and founded the Brandywine Iron Works. These two men, and later Rebecca Lukens, operated the rolling mill west of the district. A few decades later in 1881 two iron furnaces employed about 100 men. Rebecca Lukens also constructed the first high style mansion in the historic district, the Gothic Revival "Terracina," as a wedding present for her daughter. Other entrepreneurs also established woolen and paper mills in the Coatesville area. These factories rivaled the iron industry in the Coatesville area through the 1870s, making Coatesville a center for iron, woolen and paper production. The town's industrial prosperity also influenced its commercial development and by 1890 Italianate commercial buildings lined East Lincoln Highway to Third Avenue.

Beginning in the 1880s one steel firm, the Lukens Iron and Steel Company, came to dominate Coatesville. The business once owned by Pennock, Kersey and Rebecca Lukens was incorporated as the Lukens Iron and Steel Company in 1890. During the next four decades this firm rapidly expanded their plant and work force on the west shore of the west branch of the Brandywine Creek. By 1832 Lukens Iron and Steel Company had constructed eleven open hearth furnaces. Their production capacity had grown to 450,000 tons per year, and their work force had swollen to a maximum of 2,700 men. Lukens Iron and Steel Company came to dwarf all other industrial employers in Coatesville.

The growth of the population and the iron and steel industry led Coatesville to become the largest commercial center in western and central Chester County during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The only comparable commercial center in this part of the county was Downingtown, a borough seven miles east of Coatesville. However, the commercial district in Downingtown was only one third the size of Coatesville's commercial section. Downingtown also contained a smaller variety of businesses than Coatesville. In the 1890s there were approximately 100 business establishments in Coatesville that included tobacconists, general stores, fruit vendors, grocers, confectioners, oyster dealers, dry goods, jewelers, drug stores, barbers, butchers, teamsters, boarding houses, blacksmiths, tinsmith, Chinese laundry, hotels, restaurants, pool halls, clothing stores and hardware stores. In the entire county the only other commercial centers that approached Coatesville in size were Phoenixville and West Chester.

The growth of Lukens Iron and Steel Company and the population also spurred rapid construction of housing for middle management, proprietors and workers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Housing for middle management and proprietors was built in a variety of styles along Chestnut Street. Excellent examples are Elias and Jacob W. Heck's Carpenter Gothic home, 1892 (523-525 Chestnut Street) and Dr. Erasmus Swing's home, 1890 (323 Chestnut Street) erected in the Queen Anne style. Developers, particularly C. W. Speakman, Charles Ash and W. A. P. Thompson, built worker housing in a section bounded by Harmony Street, Sixth Avenue, Oak Street and Fifth Avenue. Most of these subdivisions were rectangular plots constructed in the Carpenter Gothic style. A representative example is a subdivision known as the "Plan of Woodland Avenue" which encompasses the length of Woodland Avenue between Olive and Oak Streets. H. G. Raambo, a realtor, created the plot plan and W. A. P. Thompson erected the Carpenter Gothic duplexes.

The Coatesville Historic District contains the largest collection of worker housing in Chester County from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The only collection similar in size is Phoenixville's worker housing which was constructed during the mid-nineteenth century when Phoenixville Iron and Steel was expanding greatly. Coatesville's collection of worker housing was built around the turn of the twentieth century. In contrast to Phoenixville's worker housing which was constructed with a minimum of architectural styling, the worker housing in Coatesville Historic District was erected primarily in the Carpenter Gothic style, with a minority of homes built in the Italianate and Craftsman styles.

The Coatesville Historic District also has the largest collection of Italianate commercial buildings in western Chester County; most of these buildings are located on East Lincoln Highway between First and Third Avenues. Their Italianate elements feature paired vertical brackets, applied moldings and label lintels. Excellent examples include 141-147 East Lincoln Highway, 1899; 136 East Lincoln Highway, 1899; and 218-222 East Lincoln Highway, 1892. Other towns in western Chester County have far fewer Italianate commercial buildings. For instance, in Downingtown there are only four examples and these buildings are smaller in size and proportion. Downingtown's examples also have less ornamentation due to lack of label lintels and applied moldings. Other towns in western and central Chester County are much smaller than Coatesville and Downingtown and have one or two Italianate commercial buildings at most.

Lukens Iron and Steel Industry continued to dominate Coatesville until the 1950s. Since then this firm has gradually declined due to increased foreign imports and shrinking sales. The economy of Coatesville has begun to change in recent years from an industrial base to a service and retail-oriented economy. Despite these recent changes, the historic district still portrays the commercial vitality and architecture of the period when the iron and steel industry flourished in Coatesville.