Bethlehem Steel Corporation, former American corporation (1904–2003) formed to consolidate Bethlehem Steel Company (of Pennsylvania), the Union Iron Works (with shipbuilding facilities in San Francisco), and a few other smaller companies. The company’s history traces to 1857, when a group of railroaders and investors of the city of Bethlehem, Pa., founded the Saucona Iron Company, which four years later was renamed Bethlehem Iron Company; the works was designed principally to turn out wrought-iron railroad rails. In 1899 the facilities were acquired by a newly formed enterprise, the Bethlehem Steel Company. The major founder of the corporation in 1904–05 was Charles