Alan Wood Steel made iron and steel in Conshohocken from its nineteenth century rolling mill roots until the company’s bankruptcy in 1977. Those years line up almost exactly with the era when asbestos was standard insulation in American heavy industry. A Conshohocken steelworker diagnosed with mesothelioma today is usually looking back at exposure that happened at the mill forty or fifty years ago, which is normal for this disease and does not weaken a claim.
A mill town on the Schuylkill
Conshohocken grew up around its riverfront industry. The Alan Wood works sat along the Schuylkill River in Montgomery County, and generations of local families worked there, often a father and son in the same department. The borough had other industrial employers too, including the Lee Tire and Rubber plant, so many households had more than one source of workplace dust coming through the front door.
By the twentieth century Alan Wood Steel was rolling steel plate and other products at Conshohocken. Operations continued until the company failed in 1977, and parts of the site were later run by other steelmakers. That long run matters: the longer a plant operated before the late 1970s, the more years its workers spent around asbestos-containing materials. Alan Wood is one of several Pennsylvania asbestos exposure sites in the Philadelphia suburbs with this profile.
Where asbestos fit in a steel mill
The National Cancer Institute reports that asbestos was widely used through much of the twentieth century to insulate pipes, boilers, and other high-heat equipment (NCI asbestos fact sheet). A steel mill is, in practical terms, a collection of high-heat equipment. Steam lines ran through the plant wrapped in insulation. Furnace areas used heat-resistant linings, packings, and gaskets. Workers in hot zones wore heat-resistant gloves, mitts, and aprons, and for decades asbestos was a common ingredient in exactly those materials.
None of this required handling raw asbestos by the bag. Cutting a gasket, tearing out old pipe covering, or sweeping up after a maintenance job could put fibers into the air. Once inhaled, those fibers can stay in the body for a very long time. The NCI puts the typical gap between asbestos exposure and a mesothelioma diagnosis at 20 to 50 years.
Trades at Alan Wood with likely contact
Exposure was not limited to one job title. The workers most likely to have disturbed insulation and similar materials include:
- Millwrights and maintenance mechanics who repaired hot equipment
- Pipefitters and plumbers who cut into insulated steam and process lines
- Bricklayers and laborers who relined and patched furnaces
- Boiler house crews who kept the plant’s steam systems running
- Rolling mill hands who worked near insulated equipment every shift
Similar patterns show up at other mills in the region, including Phoenix Iron and Steel in Phoenixville and Lukens Steel in Coatesville.
Exposure did not always stop at the gate
The NCI fact sheet also notes that family members of exposed workers faced risk from fibers carried home on clothing, skin, and hair. In a compact mill town like Conshohocken, where work clothes were often laundered at home, a spouse or child who never set foot in the plant can still have an asbestos disease traceable to it.
What this means for your family
Pennsylvania generally allows two years from the date of diagnosis, not the date of exposure, to file a mesothelioma claim (42 Pa. C.S. § 5524). So a diagnosis today, decades after the mill closed, can still support a case. The companies that made and supplied the asbestos products used in mills remain answerable through lawsuits and bankruptcy trusts even though Alan Wood itself is long gone.
You do not need to arrive with employment records, product names, or proof of what was in the air. Matching a work history to a site like Alan Wood, and to the specific products used there, is the lawyer’s job. Michael C. Schafle, Esq. is counsel in the Philadelphia asbestos docket (In re: Asbestos Litigation, No. 1986-00001) and reviews Conshohocken work histories directly; if you are local, the Conshohocken mesothelioma lawyer page covers the court process for Montgomery County families. Start with a free case review and bring what you remember; that is enough.