This column, written by LVEDC President & CEO Don Cunningham, originally appeared in The Morning Call and on the newspaper’s website on Sept. 18, 2026. 
When I was a kid living in the 300 block of Seventh Avenue on Bethlehem’s west side there were often two smells in the air. Depending on the time of day — or which way the wind was blowing — you could smell cinnamon or rotten eggs.
The cinnamon smell came from the Durkee’s spice production plant located just past Nitschmann Junior High School on Eighth Avenue. The rotten egg smell came from Bethlehem Steel’s coke plant on the south side where sulfur, among other things, was released when coal was baked into coke to fire the blast furnaces.
The 300 block of Seventh Avenue is located near the top of a small hillcrest, which is a unique air flow corridor that carries the smells and sounds of the city and its activities. Freight trains crossing the railroad trestle over the Lehigh River can sound like they’re in the backyard, while Musikfest concerts can arrive with the sonic clarity of Carnegie Hall.
As an adult, raising my kids on the same block, I loved both the sounds of the freight trains and the concerts.
The smells of cinnamon or other spices, which depended on what was being made that day, weren’t bad at all. The rotten egg smell, well, how much can you like the smell of rotten eggs? But my dad, a steelworker from a long line of steelworkers, would explain it away with the common refrain of the time: “That’s the smell of jobs.”
It was a different era.
My childhood time there was in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. The modern Clean Air Act had yet to be written. The Environmental Protection Agency didn’t exist. Working class people didn’t go to City Council meetings to complain.
Good or bad, it was part of life.
And in a city and a region that didn’t have a professional sports team or a major Division I college, we identified with what we made. We made structural steel for America’s bridges and buildings, Mack Trucks, Dixie Cups, the Durkee spices in Grandma’s kitchen.
The jobs paid much better at Steel but that’s where the rotten egg smell was, along with the heat, dirt, noise, and danger. At Durkee’s, you had to wear hair nets and aprons, but there was nutmeg, pepper, and tarragon in the air.
After a while, I learned how to turn my head on the front porch of our row house to take in more spice plant than steel mill.
Workers may have complained a bit about the boss, but not about the company. They were our sports teams. Bell Labs. Western Electric. Sure Fit. Alpo. A&H Sportswear. Majestic Athletic. Kraft Foods. Many are gone today — causalities of globalization or change — and some have transitioned into a new company through mergers and consolidations.
We made things in the Lehigh Valley and were proud of it.
Still do.
After a couple decades of manufacturing decline starting in the 1990s, manufacturing is once again the largest part of the Lehigh Valley economy with more than 700 manufacturers generating about $9 billion in annual GDP from 37,000 workers. It’s 16 percent of the Lehigh Valley’s economy. It’s only 11 percent of the American economy. Manufacturing job growth here has been three times greater here than across the U.S. since 2010. We make things here and send it everywhere — and companies from everywhere have been coming here to make things.
During the last nine months, two new multi-billion-dollar manufacturing projects in medicine and food have been announced, along with a $30 million expansion of semiconductor production.
Eli Lilly and Company is building a $3.5 billion pharmaceutical production facility in Upper Macungie Township along Rt. 78 to make GLP-1 infusion medicines and other products, employing 850 people. It’s the largest single economic development project in Lehigh Valley history and the largest life sciences project ever in Pennsylvania.
Chobani, a national food company, is purchasing the Keurig Dr Pepper plant just around the corner and investing $1.2 billion to make its signature yogurt and other products, using only Pennsylvania dairy products. The more than 300 KDP employees will be offered positions and another 500 plus will be added.
In between those announcements, Nokia, which recently purchased Infinera, announced that it will be expanding the company’s semiconductor production facility here to keep pace with growth.
The company names and products change. But what remains the same is that the Lehigh Valley makes and moves goods to the world — a wide variety of goods. Brand name products like Crayola crayons, Martin Guitars, Mack Trucks, Samuel Adams, Olympus scopes, Lutron lighting control devices, Peeps, and soon to be Zepbound and Chobani yogurt.
While our sports fans may cheer teams from other cities — Eagles or Giants, Phillies, Mets or Yankees — the Lehigh Valley can tell the world about what’s made here with our hands, our plants, and through our innovation. We’ve embraced it with a new marketing slogan — Made in Lehigh Valley.
A very large model of that logo has arrived in the Lehigh Valley Mall. Plans are in the works for more Made in Lehigh Valley logo signs to pop up around the region.
Gone are my childhood memories of waking up to smell what is being made.
But we no longer need the smells to know it was Made in Lehigh Valley.