DIAMOND
ALKALI/SHAMROCK
AND THE
FP&E
The Diamond and the FP&E
Though Diamond Alkali did not own the
Fairport, Painesville & Eastern Railroad (see my FP&E History
page), a major reason for the creation of the railroad was to provide shipping
services for the newly-created chemical firm.
In the decades following their creation (both the railroad and the plant
were constructed at the same time), as the Diamond grew, so did the FP&E;
and unfortunately, when the Diamond closed, the FP&E was not far behind in
fading into history. With the Diamond
being so closely tied to the FP&E—not to mention being the railroad's
largest customer by far for 64 years of its 72-year operating existence—I
believe it is a necessity to discuss the Diamond as part of any discussion of
the FP&E.
The
information I have about the Diamond's Painesville Works is organized into
three major sections: a historical background of the Diamond Alkali/Shamrock
Corporation in general, a description of some of the manufacturing processes at
the Works circa 1956, and a chronology of the different portions of the Works.
Historical Background
I have found two very good general histories of the
Diamond Alkali/Shamrock Corporation; both are entries from editions of the International
Directory of Company Histories, and both can be found on the internet. From the IDCH Volume 7 (1993) there is an
entry for Maxus Energy Corporation which, as the successor to the Diamond
Shamrock's oil production and exploration divisions, includes a good amount of
historical background information on the Diamond. This entry can be found at the following website …
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Maxus-Energy-Corporation-Company-History.html
From the
IDCH Volume 31 (2000) there is an entry for Ultramar Diamond Shamrock
Corporation which, as the successor to the Diamond Shamrock's oil refining and
marketing divisions, includes an even larger amount of historical background
information on the Diamond. This entry
can be found at the following website …
Though
the information in these articles covers the same territory, they are not
identical, so it is very worthwhile to read both of them.
The following is a very brief
version of the Diamond's history, most of which is taken from the two articles
above, and some of which is taken from excerpts of the books Strategies for
Declining Businesses, Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing and Design:
Volume 51, and Applied Industrial Economics.
Diamond Alkali was founded in 1910 by Pittsburgh-based glass makers
who wanted to manufacture their own soda ash—a major raw material in glass
production. The company was incorporated on March 21, 1910 in West Virginia,
with the company's headquarters established in Pittsburgh. With a capitalization of $1.2 million, a
soda ash plant was built in Painesville Township, Ohio. The plant began
operation in 1912; however, it wasn't until the demand for glass dramatically
increased with the start of World War I that the company's business boomed.
After the war the company expanded into other product areas. Production of bicarbonate of soda began in
1918; in 1925 the plant was expanded to produce calcium carbonates, cement, and
coke; and in 1929 production of chlorine was begun.
To ensure the company would not stagnate a research program was begun
in 1936, and in 1942 Diamond Alkali established a research laboratory. One result of the company's 1936 research
program was the production of magnesium oxide.
When magnesium became an important ingredient in incendiary bombs during
World War II, the Diamond was recruited by the U.S. government to build and
operate a magnesium plant for the Defense Department.
In the decade after World War II the company continued to expand its
product range in Painesville, but also expanded geographically through
acquisitions and new plants—including a second chlorine/caustic soda plant in
Houston (Deer Park). Though some of the
acquisitions and new plants increased the production capability of chemicals
the Diamond already made, some of the newly acquired companies and new
facilities had the effect of diversifying the company's products to include
such things as agricultural chemicals and plastics.
Reflecting the importance of its operations in Painesville, in 1948
the corporate headquarters was moved from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. The company continued its emphasis on
research by opening the Diamond Technical Center in Fairport Harbor in 1951,
and by opening the Diamond Research Center in Concord Township in 1961.
In the 1960s Diamond Alkali's expansion continued with acquisitions of
numerous chemical and plastics companies.
During this decade the company also created a specialty chemicals
division, expanded production of industrial chemicals and plastics at its
existing plants, and built new chlorine/caustic soda and PVC plants in
Delaware.
Recognizing the current trend in petrochemical combines, and not
wanting to be acquired by a large oil company, Diamond Alkali made a
pre-emptive move by approaching Texas-based Shamrock Oil & Gas with a
merger plan in the mid-1960s; in 1967 the two companies merged to form Diamond
Shamrock Corporation.
In the 1970s Diamond Shamrock continued to grow—especially in the
areas of specialty chemicals, petroleum, and plastics. Though the company was becoming more focused
on these other areas, industrial chemicals were still important, and in 1974
construction began on a new chlorine/caustic soda plant at Houston
(Battleground). But despite the
company's continued growth, the original core product of the company, soda ash—the
primary product of the Painesville Works—was in decline.
Though soda ash can be made synthetically from limestone and salt—as
was done at the Painesville Works—it also occurs naturally. Mining natural soda ash is mechanically
easier than producing synthetic natural soda, uses less energy, and causes less
pollution. However, since most of the
natural soda ash deposits in the U.S. were out west, while most of the soda ash
customers were located east of the Mississippi (along with the synthetic soda
ash producers), the cost of transporting natural soda ash across the country
made it more economical for customers to buy soda ash from synthetic
producers. This economic equation
changed significantly in the early 1970s—in part because of higher costs from increasingly
stringent pollution control standards, but mostly because of skyrocketing
energy costs: and since energy was 50% of the cost of producing synthetic soda
ash, when energy costs soared, synthetic producers could no longer compete with
natural producers. The result was that
between 1972 and 1975 four of the eight major synthetic soda ash plants in the
country had already closed down.
In 1976 Diamond Shamrock added its soda ash plant to that group when
it announced that it was closing the entire Painesville Works at the end of the
year. Though the facility made other
chemicals, there were several factors that added up to closing the entire
Works:
a) the soda ash produced at the
plant was not all shipped to customers—25% was used internally at the Works to
manufacture many other chemicals, which meant that closing down the soda ash
unit consequently ended the operations of other units;
b) the same factors that adversely
affected the manufacture of soda ash—the high costs of both energy and
environmental controls—also adversely affected the Works overall;
c) the Works was an old facility
(presumably in comparison to the company's other, newer industrial chemical
plants such as Battleground in Houston).
The closing of the Painesville
Works was indicative of the new direction Diamond Shamrock was heading, for in
1979 the company announced its intention to become an energy company rather
than a chemical company. In a move that
demonstrated this new purpose, Diamond Shamrock's headquarters was moved from Cleveland
to Dallas later that year. Over the
next several years the company divested itself of non-energy divisions while
continuing to acquire coal and petroleum companies. The ultimate divestiture occurred in 1986 when the company sold
its all of its remaining chemical business units to Occidental Petroleum. The following year the energy production and
exploration divisions of the company were split off to form Maxus Energy, and
Diamond Shamrock became strictly a petroleum refining and marketing company.
Over the next decade Diamond
Shamrock continued to grow and have success in petroleum refining and retail
petroleum sales. In 1996, the company
merged with Ultramar to become Ultramar Diamond Shamrock (UDS); however, after
this merger the company suffered one financial setback after another due to the
oil price crash of the late 1990s. In
2001, UDS was bought out by Valero Energy, and the Diamond Shamrock name
disappeared into the history books.
The Diamond Story
A few years ago I was fortunate to win
an auction on eBay for a booklet about the Diamond's Painesville Works called The
Diamond Story at Painesville. There
is no author (though there is an introduction by M.O. Kirp, Works Manager), and
there is no date in it. However, from
reading through it and comparing certain facts with the general histories
referenced above, I have figured out that it is from 1956. When I showed this booklet to my mother (her
father—my grandfather, Bruce Merrill—worked as a millwright at the Diamond from
1938 to 1975), she said that this was probably the booklet that was used when
the Diamond did a large-scale public open house when she was a young girl.
This booklet
is chock full of information about the Works overall as well as the specific
manufacturing processes of different units in the Works—much of which I am
sharing here in transcription form (unfortunately, because of webspace
limitations, I cannot display scans of the entire booklet).
To begin
with, here is a picture of a model of the Works that takes up the 'center
spread' of the booklet (this model still exists and is being kept at the
Fairport Harbor Marine Museum & Lighthouse); note that this does not show
the Diamond Magnesium Plant, which was located a little further east on
Fairport-Nursery Road (the road on the southern edge of the plant).
This
picture will be handy to refer back to when reading through all the information
I will be sharing on this webpage from this point forward.
Click on the image for a VERY large version.
Why Painesville Was Selected as Plant Site
Diamond's
first plant was built in 1912 at Painesville, on the southern shore of Lake
Erie, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.
Of the many sites studied for the new venture, this area was finally selected
in the belief the combination of its natural resources and man-made advantages
provided an ideal location with respect to supplying soda ash to the glass
industry, whose plants were then concentrated in western Pennsylvania,
southeastern Ohio and northern West Virginia.
The
area's attributes included among others:
1.
A
virtually inexhaustible supply of salt—a strata about 500 feet thick and
between 2,000 and 2,500 feet below the surface;
2.
Availability
of water from Lake Erie, in unlimited quantity, for both product-processing and
equipment-cooling purposes, and
3. Dependable, economical
transportation, via water and rail routes, for both delivery of limestone from
Michigan and coal from southern Ohio and West Virginia to the plant, and
shipment of finished products to consuming markets.
Here
in Painesville, then, four workhorses of modern applied industrial chemistry's
workaday world—salt, limestone, coal, and water—could be effectively harnessed
and products derived from them economically assembled.
Indeed,
this location proved to be a fortunate selection. Developments of the past quarter-century have confirmed the
wisdom of our founders' choice in many ways.
Most important, aside from affording easy access to these essential
materials for alkali production, Painesville has enabled Diamond to distribute,
economically from one location, to the tri-state area of Ohio, Pennsylvania and
West Virginia; to the chemical orbit in the New York-New
Jersey-Philadelphia-Baltimore section, and to chemical plants in the Midwest,
particularly such centers as St. Louis, Cincinnati and Chicago.
Production
of soda ash started early in 1912, and customer demand proved so strong that
within three years capacity was increased to 800 tons daily. A portion of the new capacity, however, was
installed for caustic soda manufacture, launched in 1915. During World War I, in response to
Government request, Diamond doubled its caustic soda production early in 1918. The Company also embarked upon the
manufacture of bicarbonate of soda the same year.
Integration Proved Prime Consideration in Early Days
Because
Diamond's founders were enamoured of the chemical industry's growth
possibilities, their long-term aim was to build an integrated operation not
only for producing the so-called "basic alkalies"—soda ash, caustic
soda and bicarbonate of soda—but also for utilizing a portion of them for
further processing and "upgrading" into other versatile chemicals.
This
expanding perimeter of new products thus called for new facilities and new
ideas; both followed at a steady pace during the next quarter-century, with
diversification and expansion sparked principally by more efficient and broader
usage of raw materials.
So,
in 1924, coke ovens were installed and an accompanying by-product plant built
to recover ammonia, gas and tar distillates.
Gas is used for fuel, ammonia and coke are required for soda ash. Benzene, toluene and related hydrocarbons
are derived from the tar distillates.
This installation enabled Diamond (1) to overcome a
then-constantly-recurring shortage of coke (used in soda ash production) and
(2) further broaden its product picture by the addition of premium-grade coke
for foundries.
In
1925, facilities were established for producing precipitated, free-flowing
calcium carbonate of exceptionally high purity, a co-product of caustic soda by
the old lime-soda process. In 1937,
these facilities were further expanded.
Waste
limestone screenings not adaptable for soda ash manufacture led in 1925 to the
construction of a Portland cement plant.
Today, it is the leading factor in Northern Ohio's cement industry.
In
1926, an operation for packaging sal soda, lye and baking soda for household
use was organized.
Two
important developments brought this initial integration era in Diamond's
history to a close: manufacture of chlorine and production of bichromate of
soda. Because of Diamond's own salt
beds and power-generating facilities at Painesville, chlorine production was a
natural corollary development.
Accordingly, and electrolytic plant was put "on stream" in
1929. Its capacity has since undergone
a number of sizable expansions.
Soda
ash is an essential raw material for sodium bichromate; hence, it was equally
logical in this instance for Diamond to become interested in producing this
chemical. Production was consequently
started in 1931.
Other
significant growth moves followed in the ensuing years prior to World War
II. They included the manufacture of
carbon tetrachloride (a chlorine-derived solvent), and the development of
specialized alkaline detergents for use in the dairy and bottling industries as
well as in laundries.
Two-Fold War Production Job Accomplished
As
you might expect, Diamond contributed in diverse ways to the nation's military production
program during the war period. At
Painesville, this effort involved the manufacture of magnesium metal for
aircraft production, and the development and manufacture of
"Chlorowax," a chlorinated paraffin.
Early
in 1941, when national defense quickly became "the order of the day"
along the industrial front, the Government requested Diamond to make metallic
magnesium. Because this operation
entails electrolytic decomposition of magnesium chloride, Diamond found it
necessary to develop a method for producing this material.
Diamond
engineers accomplished this objective through adapting certain portions of the
basic alkali process and applying these adaptations to the treatment of
dolomitic limestone. As Diamond was
getting ready to take over this production assignment, the Defense Plant
Corporation constructed a plant adjacent to our Painesville Works. Completed and put into operation in
September, 1942, this defense production facility soon exceeded its rated
capacity.
Operated
by Diamond through the Diamond Magnesium Company, an affiliate organized
specifically to carry out this mission, this plant remained in operation until
late 1945, long after other wartime magnesium production facilities had closed
down. (It received the Army-Navy
"E" Award for "excellence in war production.") When the Korean crisis came in 1951, the
Diamond Magnesium Plant was reactivated at Government request, and remained in
operation until mid-1953, when it again was "mothballed"; it is now
maintained as a stand-by facility for future defense needs.
Chlorowax,
a synthetic resin made from paraffin wax and chlorine, is an original Diamond
research development. Almost
immediately after its introduction, the material became widely used in the
manufacture of fire-retardant paints for application aboard Navy vessels, in
the production of tracer bullets, and in formulating flame-resistant compounds
for impregnating military textiles, such as camouflage nets, tents, fabrics,
etc.
What We Make at Painesville …
Soda Ash
Production of soda ash
comprises a major operation of the Painesville Plant. To make this versatile basic chemical, limestone from Michigan
and coke from our own Coke Plant are mixed in proper proportions and charged
into large kilns to produce carbon dioxide gas and lime. Salt is recovered as a solution from a
nearby deposit some 2,000 feet below ground level.
This solution, or brine,
is purified, saturated with ammonia gas, then carbonated in towers with the gas
recovered from the lime kilns. A slurry
leaving the bottom of the carbonating towers contains ammonium chloride in
solution and sodium bicarbonate as a solid.
The solid crude "bicarb" is then separated from the ammonium
chloride solution on rotary vacuum filters.
The ammonium chloride
solution is pumped to distillation columns, or lime stills, where the lime, as
a calcium hydroxide slurry, reacts with the ammonium chloride solution to form
ammonia gas and a solution of calcium chloride, a waste material. The recovered ammonia from the stills is
re-cycled to the absorbers to saturate more of the purified brine.
Washed and filtered
crude "bicarb" is decomposed in rotary dryers to produce light soda
ash, much of which is sold as a basic raw material to many industries.
Part of the light soda
ash is processed into dense ash, primarily for the glass industry. Soda ash constitutes one of this industry's
most important raw materials; it combines chemically with sand to become molten
glass, from which a host of products are made.
This Diamond Chemical is also used in processing pulp and paper, iron
and steel, textiles, soap, and hundreds of other products.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Chlorine and Caustic Soda
Chlorine and caustic
soda are derived from salt by a method most commonly referred to as "the
electrolytic process"—passage of electric current through a salt brine
solution, decomposing it into gaseous chlorine, caustic soda, and hydrogen.
Principal raw materials
used are purified brine and electric power.
The sodium chloride solution, after purification, is decomposed in
electrolytic cells using direct current.
Resultant products are chlorine gas, a weak caustic solution, and
hydrogen.
The caustic solution is
concentrated, settled and filtered to remove salt and other impurities. Hydrogen gas from the cells is cooled and
either used as a fuel or combined with chlorine to produce anhydrous
hydrochloric acid and muriatic acid.
(See the diagram in Chlorinated Products.) The chlorine gas is cooled, carefully dried to remove water
vapor, compressed, then piped into another section of the plant for use in
chlorination processing operations.
Dry chlorine gas can be
changed into a liquid by further cooling, compressing and refrigerating. This liquid chlorine is sold for use in
water purification and sewage treatment, and to chemical plants which use it as
a chemical intermediate.
Dried liquid chlorine is
packaged in various containers to meet diverse industrial demands. Some is put into 100-pound and 150-pound
cylinders. Some is loaded in ton
containers shipped either by multi-unit tank cars in lots of 15 per car, or by
tractor-trailer trucks capable of carrying as many as 10 containers. For customers using larger quantities,
liquid chlorine is delivered in single-unit tank cars with capacities of 16,
30, or 55 tons.
Safety and careful
control characterize Diamond chlorine production, loading and distribution. Control instrumentation is an effective aid
in improving safety, quality and efficiency of production.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Chlorinated Products
Chlorinated products
made by Diamond at Painesville are Chlorowax, carbon tetrachloride, and
anhydrous hydrochloric acid.
To produce Chlorowax,
chlorine gas is reacted with paraffin, yielding grades containing from 40 to 70
per cent of chlorine and ranging from liquids to resinous solids.
Carbon tetrachloride is
produced from chlorine gas and carbon bisulphide. Solvent blends, also made here, are used as grain fumigants, fire
extinguisher fluids, and for special purposes.
Chlorine and hydrogen
gas are used to produce a water solution of hydrogen chloride (muriatic
acid). The dissolved hydrogen chloride
is then stripped from the muriatic acid under pressure, refrigerated and dried
to produce a pure, dry hydrogen chloride gas.
Click
here to view
a diagram of the production process.
Baking Soda and Diamond Crystals
Soda ash is the starting
point in producing baking soda and Diamond Crystals.
In making baking soda, a
solution of soda ash is first filtered to remove insoluble matter, then fed at
a continuous rate counter-currently to a tower, through which carbon dioxide
gas is passing. The combination of soda
ash and carbon dioxide forms a "purified" sodium bicarbonate, which
is separated as a solid from the solution in high-speed centrifuges.
After centrifugal
washing, refined bicarbonate passes through dryers to remove the moisture, then
screened to yield a series of baking sodas for the food industry and related
fields. In recent years, the
very-fine-particle size baking soda has found a new market as the principal
ingredient of a dry-type fire extinguisher.
Diamond Crystals, like
baking soda, also rely on light soda ash as the basic raw material. The ash solution is filtered to remove insolubles,
then evaporated under controlled conditions to yield a crystalline product,
which is separated from the "mother liquor" in a centrifuge.
The crystals are then
washed, dried, and screened before packaging and shipment to many detergent
manufacturers, who use Diamond Crystals as a raw material in formulating
numerous washing and cleaning compounds.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Silicate-Detergents
Diamond also blends
alkalies and detergents to produce washing soda and a wide variety of other
alkali cleansers required for specialized applications by our customers. Also produced here are two types of
metasilicate—crystalline and anhydrous.
The first is processed
from liquid caustic soda and sodium silicate, the second from dense soda ash
and high-grade silica sand. Both types
find wide use in compounding detergents for application in dairy and bottling
plants, for metal-cleaning, and in commercial laundries.
Sal soda, extensively
used for water-softening purposes and as a household cleaner, is also produced
at Painesville. Still other Diamond
products made here are drain pipe opener, bowl cleaner and detergent compounds.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Calcium Carbonates
From by-product raw
materials, Diamond produces calcium carbonate in many forms for the paint,
plastics, rubber and printing ink industries among others.
While the flow diagram
appears to be relatively simple, it is somewhat deceiving in that it fails to
indicate the exacting conditions and constant control which must be maintained
to perform the operations required in producing these chemicals. Raw materials for the most part are
by-products of our soda ash operations.
This part of the
Painesville Works, known to Diamond folks and customers alike as the "Pure
Calcium Products" Plant, has won national renown for the qualities of
purity and uniformity.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Chromates
Soda ash and chrome ore
are the chief raw materials used to produce sodium bichromate.
Chrome ore (imported
from Africa mostly) is dried and crushed before entering a mixer, where soda
ash and dolomitic lime are blended with the pulverized ore in exact
ratios. This dry mixture is then
charged into oil or gas-fired rotary kilns, where the chrome compound fuses at
high temperature into a clinker.
Upon cooling, the
clinker is leached with water to remove the soluble chrome salts. Classifiers and filters then separate the
residue from the solution, which is next neutralized with sulphuric acid. A strong bichromate liquor is recovered
through filtration and evaporation.
A considerable quantity
of bichromate is sold as a liquid, but some portion of the liquor is
crystallized to produce bichromate crystals.
After drying and screening, they are sold in dry crystalline form.
Many operations are
required to purify the chromate solution, resulting in the production of
by-product chemicals in sufficient tonnage for sale in the industrial chemicals
market. These operations are carefully
controlled from the initial step of pulverizing the chrome ore through the
final stage of preparing the products for shipment.
While the bichromate
liquor is being purified, the first filtering of the original solution produces
aluminum hydroxide; and when the liquor passes through salt-removing
evaporators, these salts are fed through filters and dryers to produce sodium
sulphate.
Chromic Acid is another
chemical produced here. The finished
product, made from sodium bichromate and sulphuric acid, is sold in flake
form. Chromic Acid has many uses throughout
industry, the most important one being electroplating for both decorative and
protective purposes.
The Chromate Plant at
Painesville, one of the largest bichromate-producing facilities in America, has
been completely rebuilt in recent years.
It now incorporates processing equipment of the latest design, together
with facilities providing vastly improved working conditions.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Cement
Principal raw material
used by the Standard Portland Cement Plant at Painesville consists of limestone
fines transported from upper Michigan to Fairport, and fines removed by
screening limestone at the Stone Dock.
They are transported by rail to the Cement Plant, where the stone is
pulverized in ball mills with clay harvested from clay pits adjoining the plant
property.
The slurry of limestone
and clay is then stored in large tanks and carefully adjusted to proper
ratios. It is then fed into rotary
cement kilns by two methods—de-watering it by filtering, and by direct slurry
feed.
With kilns fired at high
temperature and using pulverized coal, the limestone and clay decompose and
combine to produce a cement clinker, which is then cooled, pulverized in ball
mills with gypsum, and carefully classified to remove all coarse particles.
The finely-pulverized
clinker is then pumped as a dry powder into the silos, where it is stored in
batch lots prior to analysis and testing to make certain the finished product
meets customer specifications.
Exacting methods of
chemical control are used extensively in the cement industry and the plant here
is no exception. Control over each step
of the operation is a basic requisite in meeting the high standards set by the
industry.
Production capacity at
the plant has been steadily expanded in recent years. In 1954, for example, capacity was increased by 380,000 barrels
through the conversion of a lime-burning kiln to cement manufacture. The following year an additional 320,000 barrels
were made possible with the installation of a new finished cement grinding mill
with auxiliary equipment.
Presently under way is
another project which, when completed, will increase capacity by another
800,000 barrels. Thus, within a
three-year period, capacity will have been increased from 1,200,000 barrels to
2,700,000 barrels.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Coke and Coke By-Products
Primary function of the
Coke Plant is to produce a high-grade, properly-sized coke for burning
limestone used in soda ash manufacture.
Surplus coke is prepared for and sold to the foundry industry. Coke oven gas, a by-product, is used by
other production units at our Painesville Works.
Several grades of coal,
rail-transported from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, are properly pulverized
and proportioned for charging into the coke ovens. Coal is heated with coke oven gas already produced until all volatile
matter is driven from the coal into collection headers. Next, the hot coke is pushed from the oven,
quenched with water, screened to various required sizes, then loaded into
hopper cars for shipment to the lime kilns or to our customers.
Recovered coke oven gas
is first scrubbed with water to remove ammonia and water-soluble salts, then
passed through oil scrubbers, which absorb benzene, toluene and xylene. Finally, the gas flows through layers of
wood chips, saturated with iron oxide.
This operation removes sulphur compounds from the gas. Now purified, it is distributed throughout
the plant for use as a fuel.
Water and wash-oil from
the gas scrubbers are recovered and stripped in steam stills to recover the
ammonia, sulphides, benzene, toluene and xylene.
Click
here to view a
diagram of the production process.
Plant Consumes Raw Materials in Huge Quantities
A few statistics may help you to
better visualize the scope of our operations at Painesville. In a single day we use
* 100 million
gallons of water, enough to more than meet the daily requirements of the City
of Cleveland.
* 2,300 tons of limestone, enough to fill 40
fifty-ton freight cars.
* 1,000 tons of coal, enough to supply 225
homes for a year.
* 3,000
tons of salt, enough to supply the yearly needs of 650,000 families.
In
addition to these basic raw materials, suppliers from many parts of the United
States and elsewhere send us other raw materials required to operate our
plant. They include silica sand,
limestone fines, gypsum, and chromite ore.
We supply our own clay, salt and purified brine.
Chronology of the Painesville
Works
(A key to
sources is listed at the bottom of this section)
The Beginning and The End
Diamond Alkali
began operating in 1912 [1]
The
Chromate Plant was shut down in 1972
[1]
The
majority of the Works was shut down in 1976
[1]
The last
remaining operating unit of the Works, the Chlorowax Plant, was shut down in
1977 [1]
Below are
details for specific plants within the Works:
Main
Plant
(On
map above: Soda Products, Washing Soda, Diamond Crystal, Buckeye Soda, Baking
Soda)
Soda Ash:
began operations 1912 [D]
Caustic
Soda: began operations 1915 [D]
Bicarbonate
Soda: began operations 1918 [D]
all three
ceased operations 1976 [1]
purchased
for scrapping/demolition 1978 [1]
Chlor
Alkali Plant
(On
map above: Caustic Soda, Electro-Chemical Products)
built
1929, began operations 1929 or 1930
[1,D]
ceased
operations 1976 [1]
purchased
for scrapping/demolition 1978 [1]
Hydrochloric
Acid Plant
(On
map above: Electro-Chemical Products)
began
operations 1930 [1]
ceased
operations 1976 [1]
purchased
for scrapping/demolition 1978 [1]
Carbon
Tetrachloride Plant
(On
map above: Chlorinated Products)
built/began
operations 1933 [1]
ceased
operations 1976 [1]
purchased
for scrapping/demolition 1978 [1]
Chlorowax
Plant
(On
map above: Chlorinated Products)
built/began
operations 1944 [1]
ceased
operations 1977 [1]
purchased
for scrapping/demolition 1978 [1]
Coke Plant
built/began
operations 1924 [1,3,D]
sold to
Erie Coke & Chemical Co. 1976 [1,3]
ceased
operation 1982 [1,3]
purchased
for demolition 1983 [1,3]
demolished
1986-1988 [1,3]
Standard
Portland Cement Plant
(On
map above: Cement Plant, Cement Plant Expansion)
built/began
operations 1924 or 1925 [7,1,D]
Plant A
(on map: Cement Plant) closed 1961 [7]
Plant B
(on map: Cement Plant Expansion) closed 1964
[7]
For Plant
A:
Structures
left vacant until 1980
sold to
Aluminum Smelting & Refining Co. 1980
[2]
leased to
Cousins, Inc. 1992 [2]
sold to
Cousins, Inc. 1997 [2]
sold to
Tierra Solutions 2004 [2]
For Plant
B:
Structures
left vacant until 1978
purchased
for scrapping/demolition 1978 [as part
of Chlor Alkali Plant]
Chromate
Plant
(On
map above: Chromium Chemicals Plant)
built/began
operations 1931 [1,D]
ceased
operations 1972 [1]
plant
torn down 1972-1973 [based on 1973
aerial map]
area
sealed 1978-1980 [1]
Magnesium
Plant
(Not
on map above: located east of plant at 720 Fairport-Nursery Road [5])
built/began
operations 1942 [D,6]
deactivated
1945 [D]
reactivated
1951 [D]
deactivated
1953 [D,6]
sold
western 2/3 portion to US Rubber (Uniroyal) 1963 [5]
sold
eastern 1/3 portion to Lonza 1963 [5]
Uniroyal
ceased operations 1999 [4,6]
Lonza
sold its portion to Twin Rivers Technologies 2002 [TR]
Another
industry located adjacent to the Painesville Works but that was never part of
Diamond Alkali/Shamrock will be included here since US Rubber (Uniroyal), who
bought part of the Diamond facility above, at one time owned this facility as
well:
Glen
L. Martin Chemical Company
(Not
on map above: located east of plant at 900 Fairport-Nursery Road [8])
built/began
operations 1947 [8]
sold to
US Rubber (Uniroyal) 1949 [8,4]
Uniroyal
ceased operations 1975 [8]
sold to
Dart Cartage (Dartron) 1979 [8]
Sources
[1] Ohio
EPA DSPW Site, Director's Final Findings and Orders, 9/27/95
[2] Ohio
EPA DSPW OU2 Site, Director's Final Findings and Orders, 7/13/06
[3] Ohio
EPA DSPW OU6 Site, Director's Final Findings and Orders, 7/13/06
[4] Ohio
EPA Uniroyal Site, Director's Final Finding and Orders, 5/14/99
[5] US
Army Corps of Engineers Painesville Site, Engineering Valuation/Cost Analysis,
June 1998
[6] US
Army Corps of Engineers Painesville Site, Final Record of Decision, April 2006
[7] FTC
Docket 8572, 72 FTC 700: In the Matter of Diamond Alkali Company, 10/2/67
[8]
Dartron Corp v Uniroyal Chemical Co., 893 F.Supp. 730, 1995
[D] The
Diamond Story at Painesville, 1956
[TR] Twin
Rivers Technologies website
Sources 1
through 4 are available for free download on the Ohio EPA website here.
Sources 5
and 6 are available for free download on the ACE website here.
Sources 7
and 8 can be found at any large/major library.
Notes and Observations
I have posted some aerial photos of the Diamond's
facilities on my flickr account—click here to
see them.
From what I have read, the
FP&E did not provide intra-plant switching services for the
Diamond—apparently the Diamond had its own switcher(s) to do that work (an
example of which can be found here).
In the book Trackside Around
Eastern Ohio (more about this book here), on page 59
there is a photo caption that reads, in part: "The limestone came off the
lake at the dock and was used in the making of coke at the Diamond Alkali
plant, …". As can be seen in the
information I provide above, this is incorrect: the limestone was used
primarily for making soda ash, and secondarily for making cement.
On page 60 of the same book there
is a photo with an accompanying caption that reads, in part: "Diamond
Alkali … was a major producer of coke for the steel industry. Here Dave catches #104 and #107 making up a
drag for the N&W at Perry. The
Diamond Shamrock chemical plant closed in the 1970's dealing a blow to the
FP&E but the coke plant remained into the 1990's …". For the following reasons, these statements
are incorrect:
1) The information I provide above shows that the Diamond
was a producer of coke primarily for itself; and though it did sell (surplus)
coke to outside customers, from what I have read, the Diamond would not be
considered a "major" producer.
In Ohio EPA DSPW Site: Director's Final Findings and Orders, it
states "Erie Coke and Chemical produced approximately 425 tons of coke per
day …". Assuming the Diamond
produced the same amount of coke as Erie Coke did before the latter took over
(an assumption I believe is reasonable), and using a conservative estimate that
the Diamond kept only half of that amount for 'in-house' use, then that means
the Diamond could only ship about 210 tons of coke per day to outside
customers. Compare this daily amount to
a true major coke producer, the US Steel Clairton Coke Works—for decades the
largest coke producer in the country—which produces 18,000 tons of coke per
day.
2) In the photo the caption refers to, it is implied that
the hoppers in the photo are full of coke and ready to be interchanged with the
N&W for shipment to a customer.
However, the cars in the photo are the FP&E's 800-series hoppers,
which as I discuss in my FP&E
Freight Car Roster page, would have been limited to use on FP&E rails
only, and would have been used primarily for transporting limestone from the
Diamond's dock to the Diamond's plant.
3) As the
information in the chronology section of this page shows, the coke plant was
shut down in 1982.
Created
by Scott Nixon
July 2009