After the Civil War, Allentown became a major iron-producing center by the 1870s. The Allentown Rolling Mill Company was a merger of several small companies and became the most significant iron company in the city. It employed many people and turned out more iron products than any other. The company was located in the 6th Ward, north of Jordan and Furnace Street, along the Lehigh Valley Railroad right of way that ran along the west bank of the Lehigh River. The output of the company's furnaces was used in its own mills for the manufacture of finished and semi-finished products, primarily for railroads. Its furnaces, mills and machine shops turned out rolled "T" and street rails, merchant bars, angles, spikes, bolts nuts, axles, machinery, bridge work, mine cars and flatcars.