The Powder River County examiner and the Broadus independent. [volume] (Broadus, Mont.) 1919-1935, 1920-01-23
WORLDS BIGGEST
NITRATE PLANT
Mammoth Explosives Factory
in Alabama Built in
Eight Months.
ALL SPEED RECORDS BROKEN
Could Supply 13 Per Cent OF
Allies Needs Had War
Continued.
ALL SPEED RECORDS BROKEN
BY GARRETT SMITH.

BY GARRETT SMITH.
Lifting the ban If war secrecy has
just now brought to light for the first
time one If the most Sr,llcndous feats
of construction i'm hi>tory--the plan
ming and building in less than one year
Of The largest ammonium nitrate plant
in the world and of Il city around il
for the housing Of its 5000 workmen
and their families At the same time
is revealed one of the chief reasons
why Germany suddenly surrendered a
year ago. The German high command
knew that the United States was
ready III Muscle Shoals. Alabama. Il"
manufacture Is per cent Of all the
high explosives needed by all the Al
lied armies on ali fronts in The expect
ed drive Of the following >.ring
The first person On construction
work reached Muscle Shoals on No
vembrr .6 1917. On February l6,
1918, ground was first broken for
permanent plant building. On octo-
Der .G. 1918, eight months and eight
days later. the manufacturing plant
had begun the production Of ammo
MUM nitrate
When America entered the world
war IN April, 1917. she had no means
of producing the enormous quantities
Of high explosives necessary To pro-
vide the huge army she planned to
raise. The very fact that our indus
tries were already worked to capacity
providing ammunition to The allies
seemed to make further production for
our own use impossible.
Fertilizer Process Turned to War Use
Al this juncture the Ordnance he
partment turned 10 cHanamil. a com
mercial fertilizer. which had for some
years been produced successfully at
Niagara Falls. b! a process the Ameri-
can rights of which We're obtained in
1907 from Germany ny Frank Sher-
man WoShburn. head Of the American
Cyanamid Company.
Hy this process cyanamn was pro-
duced by extracting nitrogen from The
air and combining it with calcium Oh
tanned from limestone rock and carbon
from coke ny putting cyanamid
through three more processes bath am
munia and nitric acid can he extracted
from il ana combined into the eXplo-
sive, ammonium nitrate Mr. Wash
burn was invited to present plans and
estimates for tie construction in the
shortest possible time of an ammonium
nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals. Ala
hama. and Il contract between his com.
pany and the United States was enter,
ea into under date of November lG.
1917.
To have general supervision of plan
ming and carrying eut the work an or
galiZatnn known a~ the Air Nitrates
Corporation was formed 10 act az
agent Of the ordnance department
This corporation provided the general
designs. supervised all the work and
operated The camp, the town and the
plant. It also installed all equipment
in The chemical plant The various
other sections of the work We're sub
let to organizations that We're special.
ISIS IN the directions in which they
We're asked to help.
New City Built From the Ground.
II was necessary to build a new
town To house the laborcrs For this
Job Westinghouse Church Kerr Com
pany was called in as contractor. This
company also built the buildings Of the
chemical plant. Within four months
1000 workmen had been assembled
nit IN
"5.0'o inhabitants hat, been completed
with lodging. restaurants. stores, Of
fees. police headquarters. schools. fire
departments. hospitals. motion picture
theaters. electric light and sewerage
systems.
The construction of the plant proper
was begun on February 10 1918 Just
eight months and eight days later the
big plant began a steady output of am.
nionium nitrate. The plant contains
lls permanent buildings, with roof
area Of over &c acres.
To provide the electric current i,
vas necessary to build a steam power
electric plant. for ii would have taken
ttree years ar more To complete the
dam and hydro electric station now I'M
der way This plant built by the J. g.
White Corporation. is one Of the lars.
est steam plants for developing cleo
rrical energy in the world
The output of the plant is 300 tons of
ammonium nitrate day. and this can
he produced At Muscle Shoals at a cost
less than one-half the standard fixed
price paid by the Government for am
m"nium nitrate produced by other
methods and one-fourth to one fifth the
cost OF either high explosives Of equal
strength. Compared with the older
process of making ammonium nitrate,
The savings made by this plant would
have paid the StiO.ODO,OtD COST Of the
entire plant in about one and one half
years of operation.
As military weapon it is one Of the
wisest and most economical exrendi-