USA > New York > Niagara County > Outpost of empires; a short history of Niagara County > Part 21
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Dr. Acheson saw one chance open-to convince the people that electric street lights were better than gas lights. But before new elec- tric lighting could be installed, the village leaders would have to be voted out of office and a new group elected. So he had handbills printed and paid boys to spread them about town, under doors, in open windows and hallways. The handbills pointed out the benefits of electricity and suggested that the only way for the villagers to enjoy electricity was to elect new leaders. Electricity won the elec- tion. The newly elected officers voted for electric lighting.
His company now safe, Dr. Acheson returned to his experiments and the search for a new abrasive. His experiments centered on his tiny electric furnace. He built this furnace by wrapping copper wire around a small iron bowl and putting a carbon rod, with
another wire attached to it, into the bowl. He connected these two wires to his dynamo.
In searching for the new abrasive, Acheson tried many mixtures in his electric furnace. None offered much promise. Then one day in 1891 he mixed powdered coke with clay and put it into his furnace. He put the carbon rod into the mixture and attached the wires. Then he turned on the electricity. The temperature in his small furnace reached several thousand degrees. When the mixture cooled, Acheson found small sparkling bits of green and black and purple material clinging to the carbon rod.
He scraped off the tiny flashing specks and placed them on the end of a pencil. He drew the pencil across a piece of glass. It cut the glass like a diamond. He then tried the new material on an oiled metal surface. It cut this also with no trouble. As a final test, he scratched the surface of his diamond ring-the hardest material known. Dr. Acheson had discovered an abrasive hard enough to cut diamonds. The new material, which he named "Carborundum," was now ready for the world.
When he had enough Carborundum as samples, Acheson headed for New York City. One of his first stops was the shop of a diamond merchant. He proved the value of his abrasive by having a diamond cutter polish the scratch from his diamond ring. The amazed dia- mond cutter immediately ordered Carborundum-at $880 a pound! Acheson made other visits in New York City and returned to Monongahela with more orders for Carborundum.
So began the commercial production of Carborundum. Acheson's first commercial furnace was four by ten inches in size and made a quarter-pound of Carborundum a day. The company built bigger and more efficient furnaces. Soon their output went to three pounds, then to twenty-five, and later to thirty pounds a day. But in spite of greater production, the company was losing money.
Acheson took on the task of finding new customers and cheaper ways of making Carborundum. For the next few years he traveled about the United States, seeking customers. He carted his Carbo- rundum samples to industrial fairs and business meetings, always eager to show its value to industry. In 1894, he sailed to Europe and displayed his precious samples in industrial centers there. Upon his return, he heard about the new Niagara Falls Power Company, which was being built by the river. He went there, studied the location, and then returned to Monongahela, sure that a move to Niagara Falls would save money.
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After listening to his arguments, his backers decided to pick up and move. They had faith in Acheson and the future of Carborun-
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dum. They sold the Monongahela plant, borrowed money, and built Aloxite is discovered a plant on Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls. By the fall of 1895, they were in production. And so the second electrochemical industry turned on its electric furnaces in Niagara Falls.
The company expanded rapidly in the following years. In 1900, four hundred people made $350,000 worth of Carborundum. By 1920, the figures had jumped to two thousand workers and $10,- 000,000 worth of Carborundum products. In 1953 6,673 workers made over $82,000,000 worth of Carborundum products. Since then production has increased.
The story of abrasive did not end with Carborundum. In 1899, Charles B. Jacobs discovered a process for making an abrasive from alumina, refined aluminum ore. Carborundum's research department developed the process for making Jacobs' aloxite. Soon the company offered the second man-made abrasive for sale.
As time went on, the company developed other products, includ- ing a special metal for atomic power. But the main product is still Carborundum in many shapes and sizes, from small wheels used to slit fountain pen points to the giant wheels used to grind logs into pulp for paper.
الباري
CHEMICALS DIVISION
CARBIDE AND C
AND CARBON CORPORATION
C.C. E. X.803
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Dr. Acheson found a Carborundum was not the only important way to make graphite discovery made by Dr. Acheson. He also gets the credit for discovering another product that is especially important for electrochemical industries.
Following the usual way for making Carborundum, Acheson mixed coke, sand, sawdust, and salt in an electric furnace. For some reason, so the story goes, Dr. Acheson forgot about the furnace. The temperature rose to four thousand degrees and Carborundum was formed. The temperature continued to rise in the unwatched furnace. Inside the furnace, the Carborundum began to burn and pass off into gas. The only thing that remained when the furnace cooled was carbon and this had changed into pure graphite.
Acheson quickly carried on other experiments in making arti- ficial graphite. In time he had a formula for graphite production- and the International Acheson Graphite Company was born. Graphite found immediate use in electrodes for electric furnaces and batteries in Niagara Falls and elsewhere.
The Carbide industry Another pioneer electrochemical industry moved to Niagara seeking power in Niagara Falls was the Falls Acetylene Heat, Light and Power Company,
later part of the Union Carbide Corporation. Like aluminum and Carborundum, it also had its beginning else- where.
In 1892, Thomas L. Willson of North Carolina was searching for a cheap way to make aluminum from clay. Willson discovered that a mixture of burnt lime (calcium) and coke heated in an electric furnace produced calcium carbide. Because he had failed to make aluminum, he threw the mixture out. He found out later, after a rain and a discarded lighted match, that calcium carbide gave off acetylene gas when in contact with water. When lighted, the gas burned with a soft and steady light.
Willson then helped form a company to produce calcium carbide. But carbide needed large amounts of electricity that was not avail- able in North Carolina. So the company began looking around for power. In time, like many other companies, they decided upon Niagara Falls. In 1895, their plant arose on the farmland near the city limits. In 1896, smoke from the plant was pouring into the sky and drifting over fields and pastures about the city. Before long, farmers and others could recognize the tell-tale smoke and odor of the carbide plant. In 1898, the company was reorganized as the Union Carbide Company.
The company first began selling calcium carbide as a source of light. Company engineers even invented a new type of lamp that-
used water and calcium carbide. The light from carbide lamps was much better than that of kerosene lamps. And when a highly- polished reflector was set behind the flame, it produced a brilliance that was a wonder to those who knew only candles and oil lamps.
Electricity, however, made an even better light. As electricity became more common, the company found other uses for acetylene gas. Mixed with oxygen, acetylene gas produces a flame hot enough to slice through metals. Today the pointed blue flame of acetylene torches is a common sight wherever the steel skeletons of new buildings reach into the sky, or wherever men work with steel girders.
What other electrochemical industries came as power increased?
The growth of power kept pace with incoming industries. More of the river's water rushed through tunnels and canals and pushed turbines to make more power. The Niagara Falls Power Company and the Hydraulic Power Company kept boosting power with turbines and generators. With more power available, other indus- tries followed the example of Niagara's pioneer companies.
Olin Mathieson Corporation took root and developed In Saltville, Virginia, the Mathieson Alkali Works felt the pull of Niagara's cheap electric power. The Mathieson Company be- gan an operation in Niagara Falls. Another company, the Castner Electrolytic Alkali Company, is also part of the Mathieson story. This company produced two basic chemicals from salt water. When electricity was sent through the salt water, the salt separated into sodium and chlorine gas. The sodium then mixed with water to make caustic soda and hydrogen gas. It was this caustic soda or lye that Castner Alkali wanted to sell. Caustic soda is a chemical much used in refining gasoline and in making rayon, textiles, plastics, soaps, and dyes.
From the chlorine that was formed in the process of making caustic soda, the Castner Alkali Company began making bleaching powder in 1896. Like caustic soda, chlorine has many uses in the chemical industry-in insecticides, disinfectants, weed killers, anti- freeze, paper, shellac, and textiles. To this day, chlorine is one of the important products of Niagara Falls.
In time the company began making other chemicals besides caustic soda, chlorine, and hydrogen. It now makes ammonia, sodium, and many other chemicals. One of its newest products is hydrazine, a chemical used in rocket fuels.
About 1917, the Castner Electrolytic Alkali Company and
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another company became the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation. Through the years it has continued to expand. Now it has seventy buildings spread over fifty-three acres and employs over a thousand people in Niagara Falls. The company has gradually reached out and taken over other chemical companies such as the Winchester Arms Corporation. It is now one of the largest corporations in the world. It has about one hundred and thirty-seven plants and offices throughout the world, making hundreds of products.
The Du Pont Com- pany bought out the Niagara Electro- chemical Company
In the years following 1895, other electro- chemical companies set up works in Ni- agara Falls. In 1896, the Niagara Electro- chemical Company, forerunner of Du Pont, built a plant at the edge of Niagara Falls.
The company began in a four room apartment in Brooklyn in 1883. A German immigrant, Franz Roessler, worked in his tiny kitchen mixing and boiling and baking chemicals. Despite his neighbors' complaints about odors, he turned out a steady stream of chemicals from his kitchen laboratory.
In 1885, Jacob Hasslacher, agent for a German chemical com- pany, approached Roessler with a plan for starting a company. A short time later, Roessler and Hasslacher opened a plant in New York City. Soon they faced the same old problem of getting enough electric power. A move was necessary. Niagara Falls was the best location, especially since the company could make metallic sodium from caustic soda made by Mathieson. Roessler and Hasslacher called the plant the Niagara Electrochemical Company.
During World War I, hatred of Germans forced the company to sell out to Americans. American owners expanded during and after the war. In time the company caught the eye of the giant E. I. du Pont de Nemours Corporation. In May, 1930, Du Pont took it over. And today it is the Electro-chemicals Department of the Du Pont Company.
Many valuable chemicals come from this plant, including a basic chemical for making nylon. It also uses acetylene from the Union Carbide Company to make cleaning fluids, plastics, and other useful products.
The Oldbury Com- pany went into production
Crowding close on the heels of "R. and H." came the Oldbury Company from England, now the Oldbury Division of the Hooker Chemical Company. Oldbury produced white phosphorus, used in matches, and chemicals for the production of non-iron metals. To make their products better, the company made improvements in the electric furnace and the cell for producing caustic soda and chlorine.
Other types of industries used electric power
Electrochemical industries came to Niagara Falls to use elec- tricity directly in making their products. But other industries came to use electricity only to run machines and to provide heat and light. Some of these companies used the river water directly in the same old way. The river turned mill-wheels which were connected to machines by a system of shafts and belts. They were usually cus- tomers of the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company.
How did the International Paper Company fill its power neęd?
The International Paper Company was one of these. Unlike other mills on the raceway of the Hydraulic Power Company, Inter- national Paper had its own intake and wheel pits. The company, organized in 1898, took over a paper mill in Niagara Falls. When it began operating in 1898, the company made its own electricity with its own turbines. Niagara Falls was fertile ground and the company grew rapidly. Spreading out, it took over other companies making the same products, thus following the pattern of other successful corporations.
In time International Paper was a large corporation that even controlled the forests that provided wood for pulp. Logs from their camps in Michigan were shipped to Grand Island on barges and then dumped into the river. From there, nimble loggers rode the logs down river to the mill site near the upper river. After a time, the company found it cheaper to have pulp wood shipped to the plant rather than to cut their own. The day of the log runs is past. The river no longer carries the flood of logs, and the odor of raw timber drifts no more over the river banks.
How did Moore Business Forms grow into a large company?
A good customer of International Paper was a local company which started in 1883. The paper bought from International Paper was used to make a new type of sales book invented by John R. Carter. Carter, Samuel J. Moore, and four other men organized a company in 1882 and began operations in Canada. Cheap power drew them in 1883 to Niagara Falls, then a village of muddy streets hugging the Niagara River. In the winter they opened for business as Carter and Company.
The road to success for the little company was not smooth. The hoped-for flood of profits turned out to be a trickle that was
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soon spent for operating costs. Some of the founders withdrew from the company, discouraged by their losses. But Moore put new life into the company and installed machines that saved time and money. Under his control, the company began to prosper.
Following the usual pattern of growth, the company gradually took over other companies in the same business. They bought out the Crume and Sefton Manufacturing Company of Ohio, and the company was reorganized as Carter and Crume, makers of sales books and registers. In the following years the company took over other companies making similar products.
But trouble was fast approaching. In 1903, a battle started that nearly wrecked the company. Carter-Crume and a competitor, the American Salesbook Company, made sales books that were much alike. American Sales Book took Carter-Crume to court, claiming Carter-Crume was copying its sales book. A long and costly legal battle followed which neither side could win. In the end, they shook hands and formed one company. The new company, called American Sales Book, had its head offices in Elmira, New York.
In 1934, the company moved its headquarters to Niagara Falls. From here it continued to expand taking over more companies. In 1945 all the companies under control of the American Sales Book Company were reorganized into Moore Business Forms, Inc. By the 1950's, Moore Business Forms had over twenty plants and three hundred sales offices in Canada and the United States. The Niagara Falls area plants alone employ more than 2,000 people.
What is the background of the National Biscuit Company?
Another industry to use Niagara's power to run machines and produce heat and light is the National Biscuit Company. This company had its beginning with a wistful old gentleman from Nebraska.
By the time he reached the age of fifty, Henry D. Perky could look back upon a long list of failures-as a newspaper man, a teacher, a lawyer, and an inventor. Perky was visiting in Nebraska when he got his big idea. Because he had stomach trouble, he asked for something easily digestible for breakfast. His hostess, following his wishes, served him a breakfast of boiled wheat. Perky sampled the boiled wheat, half expecting stomach trouble. But nothing hap- pened. He did not feel the slightest bit of distress.
The thought struck him that here was an idea that could make his fortune. If this food could help him, perhaps others would benefit from it also. In 1891 he began experimenting with wheat and later
built a shredding machine. Getting the needed supplies and equip- ment on credit, Perky started his "Cereal Machine Company" to make his new breakfast food.
Things did not go too well in Nebraska, so he moved to Colorado. But his new food did not sell there either. Big city people seemed to like his new breakfast food. And there were more people in the cities and the chances of finding people who liked his wheat cereal were better. So Perky boarded a train and headed for Worcester, Massachusetts.
But all did not go well there, in spite of his many customers. There was not enough electric power available for his rapidly expanding business. Like so many others, Perky heard about the cheap power in Niagara Falls and decided his fortune rested in the city by the river. His move, however, could not be made until he raised money for a new plant. Perky interested business men in Niagara Falls and Buffalo in his plans. His long list of past failures made investors somewhat doubtful and they checked his company carefully. In the end he was so successful in raising money that the hard and practical businessmen who owned part of his company took its management out of his hands.
But Perky had one more idea that his business partners listened to and approved. Perky wanted to build a plant in Niagara Falls that would attract visitors. He saw the new plant as a show-place where he could invite the public to see shredded wheat biscuits made; of course, he hoped to attract more customers, too.
And so the plant was built. It was bright and airy. It was even air-conditioned. Spotlessly clean guides took visitors through the buildings. Cleanliness and courtesy impressed them. The odor of baking biscuits had a mouth-watering effect. The famous tour ended with the visitors sitting in a scrubbed and polished dining room, being served Shredded Wheat by white-uniformed girls. Perky's public tours were a huge success.
The demand for Shredded Wheat became so great that the company built a second plant on Erie Avenue. Later it built plants in Canada and England. The company also changed its name from the "Natural Food Company" to "The Shredded Wheat Company." In 1904, Perky sold his interests in the company; two years later, he died. But the company continued to grow. In 1928 the National Biscuit Company bought the company. It closed the Buffalo Avenue plant and operated only the Erie Avenue plant. There the com- pany's buildings still tower over Erie Avenue, a monument to the gentleman from Nebraska.
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Industrial growth continues
After the early rush of companies seeking power, business in Niagara Falls leveled off. It did not spurt ahead again until 1917. In that year World War I began, causing a huge demand for chemicals and other products. Industrial growth between 1900 and 1917 was slow. However, several companies, later important leaders in Niagara Falls, started operating during that time.
What companies opened up between 1900 and World War I?
The Hooker Electro- chemical Company was built in 1905
One such company was the Hooker Electro- chemical Company. The men who founded other companies had been inventors; the man who built Hooker was a genius of another sort. Elon Huntington Hooker was a well-trained engineer. Soon after he graduated from college, Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York appointed him Deputy Superintendent of Public Works. His job of enlarging the Barge Canal brought him into contact with many businessmen. Soon he had a reputation for getting things done well.
Hooker's genius for business attracted attention among in- vestors in New York City. Some friends asked him to invest their money for them. He did well at this sort of thing. Finally, in 1901, he resigned his job with the state and was vice-president of the Development Company of America. This new company invested money in other companies that developed natural resources. Hooker was successful enough to convince other wealthy men that he could make money for them. In 1903 he started the Development and Funding Company to invest money in other companies with a prosperous future.
Something else that happened in 1903 seemed unimportant at the time, but it later turned out to be the foundation of the Hooker Company. Two inventors built a new type of cell for making caustic soda and chlorine from salt water. The inventors, needing money, went to the Development and Funding Company. The cell looked promising and Hooker invested his company's money in it. And he too, decided upon Niagara Falls as the place to build a plant.
In the spring of 1905, the Development and Funding Company began building a plant in a peach orchard outside Niagara Falls. In the beginning the company had money troubles. But the growing chemical industry in the United States needed large amounts of chlorine and caustic soda. In 1909, the company was reorganized
and renamed the Hooker Chemical Company. And later the old Development and Funding Company was dissolved.
With the outbreak of World War I, the company swung into war work, making explosives and other chemicals. Expansion con- tinued after the war. The company gradually began producing other materials. By the 1960's it was making over a hundred chemi- cals, all using caustic soda, chlorine, or hydrogen. Its two thousand employees were producing over $40,000,000 worth of chemicals each year.
Two world wars helped the Niagara Alkali Company to grow
Another company that began in the early 1900's was the Niagara Alkali Company, now the Niagara Alkali Division of Hooker Chemical. It also began with a cell for pro- ducing caustic soda and chlorine. Isaiah L. Roberts invented the cell and formed the Roberts Chemical Com- pany to put it to use.
The Roberts Chemical Company later sold to Germans interested
in making chemicals in the United States. The Ger- mans improved the Rob- erts cell and made other changes in the company. They also renamed it the Niagara Alkali Company. In the face of anti-Ger- man feeling during World War I, the company trans- ferred control to Ameri- cans as Roessler and Hasslacher had done.
World War I helped the Niagara Alkali Company to expand. Later, during the depression, business slowed. World War II brought another spurt of growth. By the mid-1950's the company employed about five hundred people.
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INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS
SOMERSET
SOMERSET
Y OLCOTT
FARM TOOLS CHEMICALS CANNED VEGETABLES
BARKER
WILSON CANNED VEGETABLES
O BURT CHEMICALS NEWFANE
WILSON
HARTLAND
PORTER
0 NEWFANE FROZEN FRUITS TEXTILES FELTS
YOUNGSTOWN
RANSOMVILLE CHEMICALS
WRIGHTS CORS.
MIDDLEPORT
CIRCLE SAWS CHEMICALS CANNED VEGETABLES
CAMBRIA
LOCKPORT
GASPORT
LMODEL CITY
DICKERSONVILLE
ROYALTON
VINEGAR SMALL PUMPS
LEWISTON
PEKIN
LOCKPORT
ALUMINUM & BRASS PRODUCTS
CHEMICALS ELECTRIC POWER CEREALS PLASTICS
NIAGARA FALLS
PENDLETON
NIAGARA
WHEATFIELD
NON FERROUS METALS STEEL PRODUCTS ELECTRONIC
BURGHOLZ
PENDLETON
EQUIPMENT AIRCRAFT PARTS FOOD PROCESSING EQUIPMENT
TONAWANDA
Tb
BOATS
LUMBER PRODUCTS AIRCRAFT PARTS IRON & STEEL PRODUCTS
PLASTICS COIN PHONOGRAPHS ELECTRIC ORGANS OFFICE EQUIPMENT
SANBORN
RADIATORS CHEMICALS TACKLE BLOCKS LUMBER PRODUCTS COTTON & WOOLEN
GOODS
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R. WILHELMS
TO LAKE ONTARIO
RESERVOIR
NIAGARA GENERATING PLANT
TUSCARORA PUMP
FOREBAY
GENERATING PLANT
SWITCHYARDS
TOWN OF LEWISTON
1
1
TOWN DF NIAGARA
WHIRLPOOL
NEW YORK STATE POWER PROJECT
UNDERGROUND CONDUITS
CANADA
CITY OF NIAGARA FALLS
SCHOELKOPF HYDRO PLANT
ADAMS
HYDRO PLANT
PORT DAY
WATER
INTAKES
LAKE ERIE
NIAGARA RIVER
Niagara Falls industries help each other
How is this possible?
One of the important facts in the industrial growth of Niagara Falls has been the need of one company for the products of the others. Caustic soda made by Mathieson was used by Roessler and Hasslacher to make their metallic sodium. Mathieson, in turn, used products made by other companies. Moore Business Forms is still a good customer of International Paper. This depending upon one another's products is well illustrated in the growth of the Union Carbide Corporation.
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