Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Frances E. Hughes
Farmersdelivering grain· 1923. Trucks unloading corn at old grain elevator - 1946.
Product expansion parked postwar years
Anti-freeze introduced In : 1937, the company's line of anti-freezes was broadened to include Norway, a methanol
anti-freeze. In 1941, a permanent-type glycol anti-freeze was added under the trade name Peak. Additional cooling
system products were produced to round out the line.
A large new plant at Terre Haute was completed in 1946 to package these specialty products of the company.
The field of vitamin production was entered by the company in 1938. At Peoria, production of riboflavin
supplements for use by manufacturers in poultry and livestock feeds was started. A new process was developed and
installed at Terre Haute for the production of large quantities of pure crystalline riboflavin by deep-vat fermentation.
Entering the pharmaceutical field in 1943, the company constructed a large penicillin plant at Terre Haute. Penicillin
on a large scale utilizing the deep fermentation process was first produced by Commercial Solvents. In 1946, the
company became the first to commercially produce crystalline penicillin of high potency, heat stable and not
requiring refrigeration.
Aids war effort :During World War II, the company had built and operated the The Terre Haute plant had another
addition in 1946 when a benzene hexachloride plant was built here. The insecticidal material made here was sold to
manufacturers of insecticides, thus the company was entering another field of production.
, Also in 1946, the company purchased the Pennsylvania Alcohol and Chemical Company at Carlstadt, N.J., which
produced alcohols, solvents, clear-base nitrocellulose solutions and pharmaceuticals.
Addition of the Carlstadt property increased to 10 the plants owned and operated by Commercial Solvents.
During that year of 1946, sales of the Commercial Solvents Corporation totaled $41,875,000. T. P. Walker was
Chairman of the Board and Henry E. Perry, who lived in Terre Haute for some years, was President.
The Terre Haute plant was producing benzene hexachloride, nitroparaffin derivatives, penicillin, riboflavin,
automotive specialties and potable alcohol.
Maynard C. Wheeler was vice president of production, maintaining his office in Terre Haute.
Capacity production continued for acetone, butanol and ethanol at Peoria, III.; Terre Haute, Harvey, La., and Agnew,
Calif. Plants at Carlstadt, N.J., and Newark, N.J. were distributing solvents and denaturing ethyl alcohol. The
Sterlington, La., plant was producing ammonia and methanol.
Third and last in series Work started in 1950 on a new blood volume expander to be called
on Commercial Solvents Expandex. Production of this started in the Summer of 1952. Silan, a
new synthetic insecticide to control the Mexican bean beetle also was
B y Frances E. Hughes placed on the market by the company in 1950.
From the Sterlington, La., plant a new hi-density ammonium nitrate
Terre Haute's plant of Commercial Solvents Corporation got another was introduced by the company in 1951. By that year, there were 2,555
plant in 1947 when a packaging plant for anti-freeze and other consumer employees of Commercial Solvents, with 880 of them in Terre Haute.
products was built here. Sales in 1953 amounted to $51,310,000. There was expansion for
The company also added another plant at Sterlington, La., that year Terre Haute to include benzene hexachloride, Dilan and antifreeze
when a plant for production of methanol was completed there. Bacitracin, canning, and large expansions in ammonia and methanol in the
a new antibiotic, was introduced then by the company. Sterlington plant.
Also in 1947, Commercial Solvents purchased preferred and The Terre Haute plant began production of a new antibiotic called
common stock in the amount of 65.3 percent of Thermatonic Carbon Cycloserine for treatment of tuberculosis and urinary tract infections in
Company, By then, the company had five independent businesses: 1955, and the company put a new nitroparaffin plant in Sterlington. Net
industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agriculture (animal feeds, fertilizer sales that year were $56,623,700 but employment in the company
and insecticide), automotive chemical specialties and potable spirits. dropped to 1993, with 450 of those in Terre Haute.
In 1948, a new animal feed supplement was added to the That year, the company announced a joint venture to construct a
agriculture line -- an essential amino acid, choline chloride, produced by nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer plant at Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.
chemical synthesis. The company was known as Northwest Nitro-Chemicals, Ltd.
Dedication of a new research center, including a pharmacological Commercial Solvents owned 42.7 per cent and operated the company,
laboratory and a microbiological pilot plant, in Terre Haute took place in which began production during 1956.
1949. A large commercial unit to produce benzene hexachloride for Thermatonic Carbon Company merged into the corporation in 1957,
commercial expansion also was constructed at Terre Haute that year. with Commercial Solvents then owning 100 per cent of the company,
Severe infestation of the southern cotton crop had demonstrated the which was operated as a division. There were plant expansions that year
need for benzene hexachloride. Clyde Ellis was then local plant of a new methlyamines plant at Terre Haute; new methanol unit and new
manager. ammonium nitrate unit at Sterlington.
In 1950, a new antibiotic plant was constructed here to produce Further expansion was noted in 1958, when Commercial Solvents
various products made by bacteriological processes and units were built acquired Louisiana Gas Production Company, comprised of gas wells,
in Peoria to make vitamin and antibiotic aninial feed supplements. That gathering and transmission lines; and purchased one third interest in
year, J. Albert Woods, previously President of the Wilson and Toomer Petroquimica De Mexico, S.A., to market aqua ammonia in northern
Fertilizer Company of Jacksonville, Fla., became the new President of Mexico. "
Commercial Solvents. Maynard C. Wheeler of Terre Haute was named president in