Harry Clay Trexler - Business Diversification

Business Diversification

Trexler began to aggressively expand his interests beyond lumber in the 1890s. With partners John D. Ormrod and Edward M. Young, he organized the Lehigh Portland Cement Company, which became one of the largest cement producers in the world, with twenty plants operating in ten states. He consolidated scattered electric railway properties into the Lehigh Valley Rapid Transit Company, one of the most innovative and efficient traction companies in the Northeast. He similarly consolidated the region's electric utilities, forming the Pennsylvania Power & Light in the 1920s. He purchased dozens of telephone properties, consolidating them into the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania.

He was also active in banking, finance, and real estate development. Inspired by the City Beautiful movement, he used his combined interests to promote city planning — turning Allentown into a model of balanced development (a dramatic contrast to industrially ravaged Bethlehem and Easton) (City Planning 1963; Hall 1981; Friede 1974, 1978).

In 1927, Trexler donated land to the Boy Scouts of America in Jonas, Pennsylvania. That land is now known as the Trexler Scout Reservation in memory of him, and is home to Akelaland Cub Scout Camp and Settlers Camp, a Boy Scout resident camp.