Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Coatesville, PA

Coatesville is a city in Chester County and was the first city in the county when it achieved city status in 1916; it remains Chester County's only city.

The area was settled by Scotsman William Fleming in 1714 and was known around 1800 as Bridgetown; it was renamed Coatesville in 1812 for Moses Coates, a large landowner who became the first postmaster, and incorporated as a borough in 1867.

Coatesville grew up around the Lukens Steel Company, founded in 1810 as the Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory by Isaac Pennock and Jesse Kersey.

After Dr. Charles Lukens died in 1825, his widow Rebecca Lukens took over and successfully expanded the iron works, making her one of America's earliest and most celebrated women industrialists.

The Brandywine Iron Works rolled the first charcoal iron boiler plates in the United States around 1820, and by the turn of the 20th century the Coatesville mill was considered the world's largest steel plate rolling mill and the nation's oldest continuous steel manufacturer.

In 1968 the Coatesville mill produced 152 steel 'tree' columns for the World Trade Center; after 9/11 the trees were returned to Coatesville, where they now anchor the National Iron & Steel Heritage Museum.

The mill still operates today under Cleveland-Cliffs, carrying on more than two centuries of steelmaking on the West Branch Brandywine Creek.

Coatesville had a population of 13,350 at the 2020 census, and Census QuickFacts counts 5,065 households in the city, averaging about 2.6 people each.

Coatesville is often described as the poorest city in Pennsylvania sitting inside the state's wealthiest county, a stark contrast with the affluent suburbs elsewhere in Chester County.

In 2008 and 2009 Coatesville was gripped by a notorious arson spree in which more than 70 fires were set over about 18 months, one of which destroyed an entire block of Fleetwood Street.