DIAMOND ALKALI/SHAMROCK

PAINESVILLE WORKS

 

 

            The Diamond's Painesville Works and the Fairport, Painesville & Eastern were closely connected to each other throughout their histories: both the plant and the railroad were constructed and began operations at the same time; in the decades following their creation, as the Works grew, so did the FP&E; and unfortunately, when the Works closed the FP&E was not far behind it in fading into history.  With the plant being so closely tied to the railroad—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 in some detail the Diamond's Painesville Works as part of any discussion about the FP&E.

            Below is some information I've gathered about the Diamond, and I've organized into three 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 read on the internet.  From the International Directory of Company Histories: Volume 7 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 (click here to read the entry).  From the International Directory of Company Histories: Volume 31 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 (click here to read the entry).  Though the information in these articles covers the same territory, they are not identical, so it is very worthwhile to read both of them.

For those who prefer something shorter I wrote the following brief version of the Diamond's history based on the two articles linked above plus excerpts from the books Glass: Shattering Notions, Strategies for Declining Businesses, Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing and Design: Volume 51, and Applied Industrial Economics.

 

Diamond Alkali was founded in 1910 by three glass-making companies (Macbeth-Evans Glass Co. of Pittsburgh, C.L. Flaccus Glass Co. of Pittsburgh, and Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. of Wheeling, WV) with the purpose of manufacturing soda ash—a major raw material in glass production.  The new firm 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 1924-25 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 in June 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.

            The booklet is 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).

Before reading through the transcribed information, let me draw your attention to the picture below: this is a picture of a model of the Works that takes up the 'center spread' of the booklet.  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.  The only major facility that the picture does not show is the Diamond Magnesium Plant, which was located further east on Fairport-Nursery Road (the road depicted on the bottom/southern edge of the plant).  By the way, this model still exists and is being kept at the Fairport Harbor Marine Museum & Lighthouse.

 

Diamond Plant 1954

Click on the image to view a larger 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, Caustic Soda, Pure Calcium Products)

Soda Ash began operations 1912  [D]

Caustic Soda began operations 1915  [D]

Bicarbonate Soda began operations 1918  [D]

ceased operations 1976  [1]

sold for scrapping/demolition 1978  [1]

 

Chlor Alkali Plant

(On map above: Silicates, Electro-Chemical Products)

built 1929, began operations 1929 or 1930  [D,1]

ceased operations 1976  [1]

sold for scrapping/demolition 1978  [1]

 

Hydrochloric Acid Plant

(On map above: Chlorinated Products)

began operations 1930  [1]

ceased operations 1976  [1]

sold for scrapping/demolition 1978  [1]

 

Carbon Tetrachloride Plant

(On map above: Chlorinated Products)

built/began operations 1933  [1]

ceased operations 1976  [1]

sold for scrapping/demolition 1978  [1]

 

Chlorowax Plant

(On map above: Chlorinated Products)

built/began operations 1944  [1]

ceased operations 1977  [1]

sold for scrapping/demolition 1978  [1]

 

Coke Plant

built/began operations with 1 battery of 23 Koppers-Becker ovens 1924  [D,P,M,1,2]

additional battery of 23 Koppers-Becker ovens built/began operations circa 1937  [M,K]

sold to Erie Coke & Chemical Co. 1976  [1,2]

ceased operations 1982  [1,2]

sold for demolition 1983  [1,2]

demolished 1986-1988  [1,2]

 

Standard Portland Cement Plant

PLANT A (On map above: Cement Plant)

built/began operations 1924 or 1925  [D,1,3]

closed 1961  [3]

structures used for cement storage until 1968  [3,T]

structures left idle until 1980  [conjecture]

sold to Aluminum Smelting & Refining Co. 1980  [4]

leased to Cousins, Inc. 1992  [4]

sold to Cousins, Inc. 1997  [4]

sold for demolition 2004  [4]

demolished 2005-2006  [based on 2006 aerial photos]

PLANT B (On map above: Cement Plant Expansion; converted portion of Caustic Soda building)

began operations 1954  [D]

closed 1964  [3]

structure left idle until 1978  [conjecture]

sold for scrapping/demolition 1978  [as part of Caustic Soda building]

 

Chromate Plant

(On map above: Chromium Chemicals Plant)

built/began operations 1931  [1,D]

ceased operations 1972  [1]

plant demolished 1972-1973  [based on 1973 aerial photo]

area sealed 1978-1980  [1]

 

Magnesium Plant

(Not on map above: located east of Painesville Works at 720 Fairport-Nursery Road [5])

built/began operations 1942  [D,6]

deactivated 1945  [D]

reactivated 1951  [D]

deactivated 1953  [D,6]

sold in two parts 1963  [5]

Western 2/3 Portion

sold to US Rubber (Uniroyal) 1963  [5]

ceased operations 1999  [6,7]

subsequently demolished  [based on 2002 aerial photo]

Eastern 1/3 Portion

sold to Pillsbury 1963  [L:11B-040OLD]

sold to Glyco 1969  [8]

Glyco merged into Lonza 1986  [9,10]

sold to Twin Rivers Technologies 2002  [9,10]

 

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:

 

Glenn L. Martin Chemical Company

(Not on map above: located on eastern edge of Diamond property at 900 Fairport-Nursery Road [11])

built/began operations 1947  [11]

sold to US Rubber (Uniroyal) 1949  [7,11]

ceased operations 1975  [11]

sold to Dart Cartage (Dartron) 1979  [11]

sold to Crompton Manufacturing 2001  [L:12A-051]

 

Sources

1          Ohio EPA DSPW Site: Director's Final Findings and Orders, 9/27/95

2          Ohio EPA DSPW OU6 Site: Director's Final Findings and Orders, 7/13/06

3          FTC Docket 8572, 72 FTC 700: In the Matter of Diamond Alkali Company, 10/2/67

4          Ohio EPA DSPW OU2 Site: Director's Final Findings and Orders, 7/13/06

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          Ohio EPA Uniroyal Site: Director's Final Finding and Orders, 5/14/99

8          "Glyco Buys Pillsbury Plant," Soap & Chemical Specialties, March 1969

9          "Lonza Exits Fatty Acid Manufacturing With Plant Sale," Chemical Market Reporter, 9/16/02

10        "Lonza Sales [sic] its Painesville Fatty Acids and Glycerine Plant," Lonza Press Release, 1/7/03

11        Dartron Corp v Uniroyal Chemical Co., 893 F.Supp. 730, 1995

D         The Diamond Story at Painesville, 1956

P         Trade Publications: American Gas Association Fifth Annual Convention Proceedings, 1923

and Gas Industry, Vol. 24, 1924

M         Fairport, Painesville & Eastern Valuation Maps

K         Koppers-Becker Coke Ovens, 1944 

T         Testimony from ICC Docket 23980

L          Lake County Tax Map

 

Sources 1, 2, 4, and 7 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 3, 11, P, and K can be found at any large/major library.

Sources 8-10 can be found on the internet.

Source D is discussed above; I am not sure where any other copies can be obtained.

Sources M and T are available from the National Archives (as discussed on my FP&E Resources page).

Source L is available on the Lake County website (as discussed on my FP&E Maps page).

 

 

Notes and Observations

 

I have posted some aerial photos of the Diamond's facilities on my flickr account; click here to view them.

As per references in numerous ICC documents, the FP&E did not provide intra-plant switching services for the Diamond.  However, that statement does not mean that much: Basically, due to the nature of the Diamond's product shipments and the layout of the Painesville Works, for the most part the only activity that was necessary on the Diamond's tracks was the spotting of empty or loaded cars—and any switching that had to take place to get cars ready for spotting was handled by the FP&E on their yard tracks.  Even in cases where cars were unloaded at one part of the plant and then taken to another part of the plant to be loaded (and vice-versa), such switching moves were deemed FP&E intrastation moves (the station being "Alkali").  But though the FP&E handled most of the switching duties that needed to take place for the Diamond, the Works still had a need to move cars within the confines of its facilities, and through the years they used various small industrial locomotives for those duties—such as a Plymouth 30-tonner, a couple GE 25-tonners, and a couple GE 45-tonners.  One of the 45-ton units was used to move the quench car at the Coke Plant, and in this photo from 1951 (a portion from one of the aerial photos I refer to above), you can just make out the GE switcher moving the quench car between the coke ovens and the coke wharf (at the base of the large smoke stack in the center of the photo).  Another 45-tonner in a nice green-and-yellow paint scheme was used to move FP&E hoppers at the Diamond's Stone Dock.  A close-up picture of that switcher in the FP&E's West Yard can be viewed here; and a more recent picture of the same switcher—albeit, permanently out of commission—can be viewed here.

In the book Trackside Around Eastern Ohio (more about this book near the bottom of this page), 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 from the information 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) As explained in "The Diamond Story" section above, the Diamond was a producer of coke primarily for itself; and though it did sell surplus coke to outside customers, from the materials I have read the Diamond would not be considered a major producer.  The Diamond produced "furnace coke," and in 1973 when the Coke Plant was running at peak capacity (the previous year both coke batteries had been rebuilt) it produced about 680 tons of coke per day—of which about 200 tons went to the lime kilns, leaving roughly 480 tons available to be shipped to outside customers each day.  When the Diamond sold the Coke Plant to Erie Coke & Chemical, the new owner produced "foundry coke" which, because of the longer coking time required, reduced the plant's total production amount to about 425 tons of coke per day.  These daily production amounts may sound like a lot, but when compared to a true major coke producer such as the US Steel Clairton Coke Works, which in 1980 produced more than 16,000 tons of coke per day (and in the 1940s and 1950s produced 21,000 tons of coke per day), then the Diamond's Coke Plant was definitely a minor producer.

2) In the photo the caption refers to, it is implied that the hoppers in the photo are going 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 on my FP&E Freight Car Roster page, were limited to use on FP&E rails only—meaning that the hoppers in this photo are actually in the midst of an intrastation move of coke from the Coke Plant (on the east side of the Painesville Works) to the lime kilns (on the west side of the Painesville Works).

3) As shown in the Chronology section of this page, the Coke Plant ceased operations in 1982.

 

 

 

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Created by Scott Nixon

July 2009

Updated: October 2010, April 2011, September 2021