The TISCO Complex occupies 28.3 acres of a once 10,000-acre tract owned by Philadelphia investors William Allen and Joseph Turner, who founded the Union Iron Works here in 1742. The iron works produced farm implements, tools, and cannon balls for Washington's Army during Colonial times. In later years the property and its structures became part of the Taylor Wharton Iron and Steel Company, identified as the nation's oldest continuously operating foundry and America's second oldest business. The site remained associated with iron production from the Union Iron Works in 1742 through the Taylor Wharton Iron and Steel Company, whose operations ceased in 1972, and the property is now part of the borough's permanent open spaces. It contains two structures: Shop E, an early industrial building, and the historic stone TISCO Office Building. The TISCO Office dates to around 1725, predating the Union Iron Works, and long served as the companies' general office, housing the offices of presidents from William and Allen in 1742 through George R. Hanks in 1972; it also served as a company general store and an infirmary. Originally a center-hall colonial structure, it was expanded in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a right-side wing and rear extension added in the 1890s, a third floor and rear-wing expansion in the late 1920s that gave it American Renaissance style architecture, and late 1930s changes that removed the front porch and added entranceway fanlight arches and a memorial entablature above the doorway. After Taylor Wharton's closing in 1972, the building stood intact but vacant for decades; in 2007, a public awareness campaign began to save it and start restoration efforts, and that year it was placed on Preservation NJ's top 10 list of endangered sites and recognized at the state and national levels. Shop E, constructed in 1904 as one of the first new 20th-century buildings erected by the Taylor Iron and Steel Company, is a classic example of American Industrial Revolution architecture; it served as a machine shop and for fine grinding of forged metals, and its steel structure was produced at the Taylor Wharton Iron and Steel Company. In 2007, a public awareness campaign also began to promote the re-use of Shop E.

Photo: Alan Edelson

Photo: Alan Edelson

Photo: Alan Edelson

High Bridge, New Jersey · USA