Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelmaking and shipbuilding.

[1] The site of the former Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard and steel mill is now renamed Tradepoint Atlantic in a revitalization program to clean up the environment and make it one of the largest ports on the East Coast of the United States.

Among the many wealthy residents of Baltimore who owned property there was Major General George H. Steuart, who hosted the social reformer Dorothea Dix at Sparrows Point.

[5] Sparrows Point remained largely rural until 1887, when an engineer named Frederick Wood realized that the marshy inlet would make an excellent deep-water port for the Pennsylvania Steel Company.

[5] Following World War II, many rural economic migrants settled in Sparrows Point, coming from Southern and Appalachian states.

In the mid-1950s, the plant operated 10 blast furnaces and had a rated capacity of 8,200,000 short tons (7,321,000 long tons; 7,439,000 t) of ingot steel per year, making the Sparrows Point waterfront plant the largest steel mill in the world at the time, stretching 4 miles (6.4 km) from end to end and employing 30,000 workers.

[12] Changes in the steel industry over the following decades, including a rise in imports and a move toward the use of simpler oxygen furnaces and the recycling of scrap, along with the intrinsically time and labor-intensive process of open-hearth steelmaking, led to a decline in the use of the Sparrows Point complex during the 1970s and 1980s.

From 1984 through 1986, an effort to modernize resulted in the successful installation of a basic oxygen furnace (BOF), continuous caster and supporting management information systems.

"[20] According to one of SPT's executives, the company's plans for redevelopment include transforming the site into "one of the largest ports on the East Coast".

During the 1970s, Bethlehem Steel invested millions of dollars in upgrades and improvements to the Sparrow' Point yard, making it one of the most modern shipbuilding facilities in the country.

Bethlehem Steel lurched from one financial crisis to another throughout the 1980s and 1990s, selling the Sparrows Point yard to Baltimore Marine Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Veritas Capital, in 1997 as part of an unsuccessful restructuring attempt.

In 2007, the international energy company AES Corporation applied to the federal government for a certificate to build and operate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Sparrows Point.

[25] The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project in January 2009, over the objections of state and county officials in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

[26] FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff cast a dissenting vote, stating that in his opinion the region’s energy needs could be better met without including LNG in the mix.

It had company stores, churches, and residential streets, with larger homes provided for upper level managers and rowhouses for other employees.