Manufactured goods made in countries which offered lower wages to their workers.…coupled to less regulation. A hollowing out of the City’s property tax base. Suburbanization. Each contributed in their own unique way to Trenton’s continual decline. A decline in industrial output. A decline in the City’s population. But for Trenton, the year 1974 stands out as having a local occurrence of finality, some may say.

The early Twentieth Century industrial prowess of Trenton – and of Trenton industrialists – owed much sustenance to the City’s ability to utilize newly-built canals and railroads. Railroads and canals transported manufactured goods – made in Trenton – to end markets, such as New York City and Philadelphia.

While Trenton enjoyed a long run as an important American manufacturing hub, in June of 1974, the final 1,400 employees of what had once been Roebling’s Trenton industrial empire lost their jobs. These final Roebling layoffs? The result of numerous failed attempts to revive the then-Trenton plant, which had been controlled by (at that time) Roebling’s acquirer, Colorado Fuel & Iron.

Those two Roebling manufacturing plants in Trenton closed their doors for good in 1974. Marking the end of Roebling’s manufacturing presence in Trenton. And, to some, also marking a finality of sorts, to what once had once been a thriving industrial hub. Trenton.