Bethlehem’s 1761 Tannery lands $138,600 in state grants, but still needs $2 million to reopen

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — A pair of state grants totaling $138,600 will let Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites begin the next phase of restoring the 1761 Tannery this summer. This is a step toward reopening one of the oldest buildings in the city’s Colonial Industrial Quarter, though the nonprofit says about $2 million more must be raised before the public can tour it again.

The work centers on a stone building that has been closed to public tours for more than a decade and is part of the Moravian Church Settlements, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in July 2024.

The larger of the two awards, $75,000, comes through the state’s Local Share Account program, which distributes casino gaming revenue, and was secured by State Rep. Steve Samuelson. It adds $63,600 to the project, which the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission previously awarded through its Keystone Historic Preservation Construction Grants program.

The money will pay for masonry and woodworking that the building still needs, according to Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites President and CEO LoriAnn Wukitsch. She said the upcoming phase will involve carpentry, plastering and stonework, building on earlier restoration of the Tannery’s roof and the windows on its upper floors.

Wukitsch said the organization is awaiting word on additional funding sources and hopes to reopen the Tannery to public tours by the end of 2027.

The building’s long closure traces largely to water. Wukitsch said nuisance flooding over the years damaged the public viewing deck and the first floor. With support from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, she said, the organization conducted a geomorphological study and an archaeological investigation in 2024 to measure how much water was entering the building.

That study found no underground springs were to blame, Wukitsch said, and its recommendations led to a new pump. She said the pump, together with a planned filling of the building’s tanning vats and the Army Corps of Engineers’ removal of a dam on the Monocacy Creek several years ago, has kept the Tannery free of flooding since.

Asked about the total cost of the project, Wukitsch did not provide a figure but said roughly $2 million still must be raised to finish the restoration and reopen the building to the community.

Samuelson, who represents the 135th District, which covers Bethlehem, tied the grant to the broader preservation of the Colonial Industrial Quarter. He said he was especially interested in the building’s value as a teaching site for students and tour visitors and called efforts to restore it critical to maintaining the quarter. “The Tannery was the center of an important industry in its time,” Samuelson said.

Built in 1761, the Tannery was central to Bethlehem’s early Moravian community, where craftsmen turned about 3,000 hides a year into leather goods such as shoes, boots, saddles and harnesses, according to Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites and a state historical marker at the site. During the American Revolution, the building helped supply leather to the Continental Army. It was restored between 1968 and 1971 and reopened to the public as a museum.

Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites describes the Tannery as the only surviving 18th-century Moravian industrial building in the world. The nonprofit said it has previously restored the building’s doors and windows as part of its ongoing work there.

Wukitsch said the timing of the restoration matters because it coincides with the development of the adjacent Overlook on History, a glass-and-steel connector being built to join the Luckenbach Mill and the Grist Miller’s House. The release says that the project is expected to open this fall.

Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites, a Smithsonian Affiliate, preserves more than 275 years of local history across 20 historic structures. The Tannery is one of several Bethlehem properties included in the Moravian Church Settlements, Bethlehem World Heritage Site, which became the 26th UNESCO World Heritage site in the United States.