Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1919-02-14
PASSING OF HopEwELL.. :.
Mushroom Virginia City Settling
Down to Normal Conditions

lSltl ' - . ~NS OSstAAAst
Down to Normal Conditions
A correspondent Rof the BaHimor
Evening Sun says Hopewell has los
hope!
For over three years this ittl
mushroom city, which sprung from
the cornfelds and cotton planta ton:
almost over night, lived up to it
name. It had visions of population
Of 100000 in 1920.
Then came the end Of the war-ant
Hopewell was hopeless.
The E. l. du Point de Nemours Com
pany closed its great guncotton plant
which had been the only industry, the
sole excuse for the existence of Hope
we'll.
IN three years Hopewell had grown
to city of 10000 people, with paved
streets, modern improvements brick
store buildings and row upon row of
little wooden cottages. In three months
it has become a deserted village, with
a population of less than 1000.
Hundreds of the little cottages,
built by the Du Pont company to
house its employees are empty.
Scores of the stores and Offices that
lined Broadway and Hopewell streets,
the main business section, are desert
ed and closed. Property values, which
in 1915 and 1916 reached metropolitan
have so slumped that you
can buy a lot in Hopewell today for
$25 which two years ago cost the
owner $4,000 or more.
And the Du Point company is dis
its plant, turning the greater
part of its acid-worn machinery into
Junk, and shipping the rest of it to its
other plants.
The company is-now experimenting
with making paper pulp in its guncot-
ton works. The name has been chang
ed from the Du Pont Powder Com
pany to the Du Pont Chemi.al Com
pany.
Hopewell was one of the marvels OF
the war. The Wonder City, they
called it. Faced with millions OF DOL
lars' worth Of orders from the Allied
for guncotton and nitric
acid and sulphuric acids the Du Pont
company in 1915 selected this site, at
the confluence Of the James and APP
Oomatox rivers, navigable by seagoing
ships, as the spot on which to rush up
4 big factory.
Men hurried to Hopewell from all
parts of the country, lured by the
promise of high wages. Common Ia
,orers were paid from $50 TO sou
week; skilled workmen got fabHiou@
wages. At first the town went through
ne history Of all boom towns-it
wed in tents and board shacks built
,ver night. Twice it was destroyea
~ fire and rebuilt more solIdly. by
he time the United States got into
he war Hopewell was real city, WIFE
90 brick buildings and hundreds
CIV wooden and tar paper cottages
,uilt by the company.
The powder plants payroll approx
r,ately more than a million dollars a
ncnth. Money was plentiful, and the
,itv was one Of the most prosperous
n the country, despite its youth. 1t
installed costly fire apparatus, built
yaterworks, paved the streets, light
ID them with electric lights, organized
a police force and laid its plans to eN-
oand into a city of 100000. It's Board
of Trade did a lot Of advertising To
bring people here, and there was work
far all who came.
Then came November 1.-THE day
Of rejoicing throughout the world ous
of dire tragedy for Eopewell. -Four
DAYS later the company began DIS
It's men, By January ! the en-
fire plant was closed. The giant stacks
ara smckeless. the great boilers are
cold, Twenty thousand men found
themselves without work.
Unless the Du Pont conlpany's pa
rcr experiment proves successful,
within a few months Hopewcll will
no completely desertd and will be left
"a ruin like its historic nclghbor,
Jamestown, only few miles away.