Plant played key role in WWII effort
Yesterday’s News by Frank Boyett
Sunday, December 27, 2015
The year 1940 ended with a strong whiff of exhilaration in Henderson’s collective nostrils. It was a huge deal at the time, but the significance of the $13.6 million anhydrous ammonia plant has faded over the years, even though a part of it still operates today as Custom Resins. I doubt many people know the true role Henderson played during World War II, and the importance the plant was to the war effort.
And landing the plant was a near thing at the end.
The Henderson Board of Trade had been trying to get a defense industry of some type since early 1939; word inadvertently leaked Dec. 26, 1940, that Henderson was the favored site. That set off a mad rush by other cities to steal the project. The leak came from Harriet Elliott, a member of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense. She didn’t realize a reporter was present while she was addressing a luncheon in Carbondale, Illinois.
She confirmed the new ammonia plant was going to be in Henderson when telephoned by Gleaner publisher Leigh Harris, according to The Gleaner of Dec. 27, 1940. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt had not yet signed off on the plant’s location. So the next few days of The Gleaner’s coverage contained much speculation — and alarming indications the premature announcement could allow it to slip away.
“A dozen hungry towns in this Congressional district began to pound on their empty plates and importune the congressmen and senators,” said The Gleaner of Dec. 31. Owensboro and Madi-sonville quickly dropped out and threw their support behind Hender-son. But Paducah thought it still had a chance; officials there “felt slighted.” There was quite a bit of politics involved in the choice, as well as the nuts and bolts of what would actually be the best loca-tion, according to the syndicated column “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” which was printed in The Gleaner of March 2, 1941.
The nation’s top defense problem at that time was not lack of airplanes, but lack of explosives and gunpowder. Just a short time earlier America had enough to last only a few short weeks should it become embroiled in a war. So ammonia was needed to produce artificial nitrates, a crucial component to explosives. Allied Chemical and Dye was one of two big firms that had landed cost-plus contracts, and Allied initially wanted to put the plant in South Point, Ohio.
U.S. Sen. Alben Bark: ley’s complaints to Rous-evelt got him a promise to place the plant somewhere in Kentucky. It just wasn’t in Barkley’s home of McCracken County.
The Gleaner of Jan. 1, 1941, said Roosevelt had signed off on the Henderson location, according to U.S. Sen. A.B. “Happy” Chandler.
“You are getting a much finer industry than you realize and it is likely to prove permanent,” Chandler said.
Two days later that decision was confirmed by the War Department and by Barkley. But someone was planting nasty rumors that Henderson was subject to flooding. Not true, said local officials, air mailing data to prove their case.
“Henderson was 19 feet above the highest water in the memorable 1937 flood,” wrote George H. Bailey, the Henderson area’s district highway engineer.
The contract for construction of the plant was signed Feb. 15, putting the worries to rest, according to the following day’s Gleaner.
The $15,484,195 contract included $13.6 million for construction and $1.8 million for initial operations.
The private company was the Atmospheric Nitrogen Corp., a division of Allied Chemical, and the ammonia plant was officially designated the Ohio Valley Ordnance Works.
Harriet Elliott, the woman whose premature remarks had set off the controversy, wrote Leigh Harris a nice letter of con-gratulations, which was printed in The Gleaner Feb. 1. “I am delighted that we did prevent the plant from being withdrawn from Henderson. All’s well that ends well. I have not been court-martialed, and you have the plant.”
An office was set up through the Soil Conservation Service to buy the required 832 acres, but the owners couldn’t agree on a price, so it appeared condemnation proceedings would be needed, according to The Gleaner of Feb. 25. Construction began in late April 1941, according to a historical article written by Charles Parrish of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Partway through construction a news blackout was imposed because of wartime restrictions. So there was no Gleaner coverage when the plant was completed in September 1942.
Parrish noted the project came in ahead of schedule and below bud-get, despite the declaration of war, which increased inflation and heightened security, costs. One of those costs was the purchase of 14 revolvers (.38 caliber Colt Official Police), which were shipped six weeks after Pearl Harbor from the Charles Leonard Hardware Co. of Petersburg, Virginia. The plant had a daily capacity of 150 tons of liquid anhydrous ammonia per day. The initial commanding officer at the plant was Lt. Col. Lewis VanGiesen, although toward the end of the war it was Capt. Art Holstein.
“I… have been fortunate in that during my stretch thus far in the Army I have been able to continue use of my chemical industrial experience in the manufacturing of explosives,” he wrote in the May 1945 issue of the Omicron Arrow, his fraternity at the University of Illinois-Champaign
A Princeton alumnus named Johnny Gaston, who was legal adviser at Atmospheric Nitrogen, was not so lucky, according to a letter from a former classmate. “He says there is very little entertainment and life in Henderson and if anybody is passing that way, he wishes to heaven they would stop in and see him.”
The federal government was loaded with unneeded facilities after the war, and sold the plant to Spencer Chemical Co. in 1950.
In 1957 Spencer Chemical started trial production of nylon, and that is what Custom Resins continues to produce at what remains of the original plant.
100 YEARS AGO
The company building the dam downstream from Henderson was undergoing bankruptcy, according to The Gleaner of Dec. 30, 1915. M.J. Bray, treasurer of the firm, said he had put up his own real estate as security for the firm’s debts, and it appeared he would lose heavily, although he expressed assurance the firm would successfully emerge.
50 YEARS AGO
The Henderson Boat Club was heavily damaged by fire, The Gleaner reported Dec. 28, 1965, which caused it to go out of business. The land had been leased from the city for 20 years in 1947.
25 YEARS AGO
The animal shelter of the Humane Society of Henderson County was undergoing an expansion that would double its size, The Gleaner reported Dec. 26, 1990. The $170,000 project involved building all the way around the existing structure, allowing the dog runs to be entirely enclosed.
