HISTORY:

Located at the center of the Lehigh Valley, Catasauqua is one of the smallest, but most densely populated municipalities in the Valley. Now a quiet residential community, the borough once was home to the Crane Iron Works, the first technically and commercially successful anthracite iron furnace. Its first blast in 1840 marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America.

The iron and allied industries brought much wealth to the town; such that by the early 1900s, Catasauqua had the highest concentration of millionaires per capita in the nation. Industry waned after WWI and commerce declined with the introduction of malls in neighboring Whitehall in the 1960s. With the purchase of the old Crane Iron site, the borough is targeting a development of the canal front and revitalization of downtown areas.

The borough is fortunate to have a well documented history due to its rich heritage, with many early histories of Lehigh County including detailed sections on Catasauqua and its residents  In 1914 there were three histories of the borough published.  A centennial history of Catasauqua was published in 1953 (the green book).  In 1992, HCPA published a History of the Boroughs of Catasauqua and North Catasauqua (the blue book). Since then, Martha Capwell Fox, a local historian, has published two pictorial histories on the boroughs through Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series.