BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Bethlehem Steel officially went out of business 23 years ago, but its amazing legacy is being kept alive by curious kids.<\/p>\n
69 News reporter Rick Holmes visited the site with a third grader who’s obsessed with the history of the ‘Stacks.<\/p>\n
Ben Acevedo didn’t write the book on Bethlehem Steel, but someday he plans to.<\/p>\n
“They called the old furnaces mini-mills because there were small furnaces,” said Acevedo.<\/p>\n
The 9-year-old has been obsessed with learning everything there is to know about his hometown Bethlehem Steel.<\/p>\n
“I learn a little bit about something, then I want more information about it,” Acevedo said.<\/p>\n
With a striped tie and an eagle-eye, Ben observes the good, the bad, and the dangerous.<\/p>\n
“People got injured here and five people died. One of those people was a Veteran who was there for his first day,” said Acevedo.<\/p>\n
Ben’s father brings his son to the SteelStacks and watches Ben’s curiousity take over.<\/p>\n
“He gets into anything he likes. He was born in Bethlehem and he wants to learn more about where he’s from,” said his father, Ben Smaw.<\/p>\n
Ben got a special surprise when he was visited by Kassie Hilgert, the President and CEO of ArtsQuest at Steelstacks.<\/p>\n
It’s children like Ben who can turn history into a tangible experience that they can see and touch.<\/p>\n
“You’re never going to see structures like this built again in the U.S. for steel production. It’s just much smaller these days.” Hilgert said. “So for them to be exposed to this, it sparks that curiousity. ‘What happened here. What was going on here, and how can I learn about it?'”<\/p>\n
“He knows more about it than some people who have been there their whole life. And he’s only 9 so imagine what he’s going to learn in the future,” said Smaw.<\/p>\n
A future that’s directly tied to Ben’s hometown’s past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Bethlehem Steel officially went out of business 23 years ago, but its amazing legacy is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":{"0":"post-167113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-bethlehem-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}