Coplay: Cement Kilns
Coplay’s unique cement kilns date to the 1890s. Experts believe they could be the last of their kind left standing in the world.
But restoring all of these 60-foot monoliths is an expensive undertaking estimated to cost upward of $5 million.
The kilns were designed after ones created in the Danish city of Aalborg during a boom in the cement industry. At the time, this design was cutting-edge technology in Europe. A decision by Coplay Cement’s superintendent to bring the method to America was seen as enterprising.
But better technology was developing at breakneck speed and by 1904, the kilns were silenced. Little has come of preservation efforts over the next 100 years. Pieces of the manufacturing plant were razed, leaving the towering kilns exposed.
A museum established in 1975 at the base of the kilns encountered moisture and mold issues and had to be shuttered. The kilns made it to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, but by then the elements had already begun to do serious damage.
Fundraising efforts in the 1990s and 2000s failed to gain significant traction. Four kilns had work completed in 2000 and five came close to demolition in 2004.
In 2005, the kilns made Preservation Pennsylvania’s list of the top endangered historic sites.
There was a sense of promise in 2016 when the kilns received a $200,000 federal grant as well as $800,000 from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, a private philanthropic organization based in New York City that lists historic preservation among its missions, to study preservation efforts.
Kiln 1 West was selected for rehabilitation in 2016 because of its visibility and relative lack of damage. The hope was that the preservation efforts would inspire private donors to step forward and attract more federal money. But that aspiration, two years later, has failed to produce meaningful results, shrouding the future of the towering structures in uncertainty.