Union Carbide Corporation

For almost 90 years, the Union Carbide Corporation was one of the largest calcium carbide producers. Out of the three calcium carbide factories, in Appleton, WI and Sault Ste. Marie, MI, the Niagara Falls factory was one of the largest manufacturing plants in the city. The factory produced acetylene which is generated from calcium carbide and water. The acetylene gas was used in producing complex chemicals by several other industries in Niagara Falls such as DuPont Company and Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation. Acetylene itself was used in the production of rain coats, shower curtains, garden hoses, lamps, medicines, and insecticides. Calcium carbide was also used in the manufacture of storage batteries and flashlights. Because the Union Carbide factory contained over 100 furnaces, other chemicals were produced including silicon and chromium. The Niagara Falls plant is notorious for taking part in the Manhattan Project and the U.S. Space Program.

The Union Carbide Corporation has gone by several names over the years. The Union Carbide Company was formed in 1898 to take over the properties of the Acetylene, Light, Heat, and Power Company of Philadelphia (1896). A new plant was opened in 1899 in Niagara Falls at 4625 Royal Avenue. In 1917, the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation was formed joining five companies, Electro Metallurgical (1906), Union Carbide, National Carbon (1886), Prest-O-Lite Company Inc., and Linde Air Products Company, as subsidaries. It was not until 1981 that the Union Carbide Corporation became a subsidary of Elkem and the Niagara Falls plant was shut down in the Fall of 1985.