Before 1946, people in Orange found jobs in “the shipyards, the pickle plant or the ABC Store or some small business,” Bob Crew said Tuesday. The DuPont Company built Sabine River Works as World War II ended and changed local history. “We thank DuPont for providing Orange with great jobs,” he said.
Crew, an Orange native who started working at DuPont in 1950, gave a presentation of the local plant during the annual dinner meeting of the Orange County Historical Society. His presentation drew more than 40 people to the Sunset Grove Country Club Tuesday night. Many of them had worked at the plant.
Orange had changed during World War II as the U.S. Navy built a shipyard here and locally-owned ones started constructing ships for the defense effort. The population went from 7,000 to 60,000.
In 1945, Lutcher Stark and Frank Brown sold 142 acres of coastal prairie land along Adams Bayou and the Sabine River. Crew said he could not find out what the selling price was.
During the war, available and qualified men were in the military. Women and other men worked in the shipyards. Crew said steel and workers were precious at the time. But somehow, hundreds of construction workers and tons of steel were put together to build the Sabine River Works plant to manufacture components for nylon.
Crew talked about how miraculous the plant construction was during the war. Only a dirt road went to the site; so a paved street had to be built. Railroad tracks had to go, in along with a water transportation system that includes docking for barges. Parking lots had to be installed. Water, electricity and steam were needed. A security system with fencing and badges for workers had to be implemented.
With all the effort, the plant opened in 1946. Crew said seven people were the first employees and they were earning $1.60 an hour. The payroll was less than $350. A year later, 719 people were on the payroll.
DuPont Sabine River Works was away from town in the prairie. It was the first industry out on what became known as “Chemical Row” because it is lined with petrochemical plants. Crew had a photograph of a cowboy on a horse in the prairie looking toward the plant. He said the cowboy was Lawrence Winfree who was still keeping cattle on nearby lands in the 1940s.
Through the presentation, Crew talked about the addition of different units to the plant. The original three-story administration building still stands, but he said it has been vacant for some 20 years because of asbestos.
Crew knew many of the buildings and units. He worked at Sabine River Works for 35 years beginning in 1950, a few years after it opened.
The reservoirs near the river have changed through the years, but some things remain. “This is real good fishing,” he said about the area by the reservoirs.
At its peak time, DuPont Sabine River Works had 2,800 employees and 1,500 construction contractors. DuPont sold the nylon production part of the plant to Invista in 2003. Crew said DuPont has 900 employees today and Invista has 600. However, Invista recently gave notice to 110 employees of layoffs.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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