Carbon Black Industry

Lea County Family and History, "Then and Now" Vol# II

 Copyrighted information printed with Permission

(Editorial Note: The following history is based on information contained on a taped interview by Mettie Jordan with Frank Werner in 1979. The tape is on file in the Lea County Archives located in the Pannell Library at the New Mexico Junior College. Mr. Werner died in 1983. Appreciation is expressed to his son Harry for reviewing this story and providing additional information. Appreciation is also expressed to J.E. Earhart, Villas Tucker, M.T. Turner and Byron Hughes for supplemental information.)

The Carbon Black Industry

The carbon black manufacturing industry developed in the Eunice area of Lea County during World War II because of an urgent national need for the product in the manufacture of tires and because of the availability of quantities of low cost natural gas containing a large amount of sulphur. The industry rose quickly and vanished almost as quickly, killed by the rising cost gas and its purification and by the ability of other areas and countries to produce carbon black more economically.

The lifetime for the industry in Lea County was from the early 1940's to the early 1970's. At its height there were four operating plants employing hundreds of workers and producing millions of pounds of carbon black yearly.

Carbon black is a pigment produced by the incomplete combustion of either natural gas or crude petroleum. Before World War I, it was used principally in painting or printing. During World War I carbon black was found useful in the manufacturer of tires substituting for chemicals formerly provided by German firms. In the interval between WW I and WW II, carbon black was manufactured in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.

In World War II, after the Japanese cut off the U.S. sources of natural rubber in the South Pacific, the synthetic rubber industry developed and synthetic rubber tires required required more carbon black than natural rubber tires. Hence, there was a tremendous demand for carbon black.

The U.S. Government in order to encourage development of industries necessary for the war effort established an agency known as Defense Plant Organization  (DPO). This agency furnished money to build needed plants, called Plancors. The government supplied money to contractors to build plants which were then operated by lessees. The Charles Enev Johnson Company of Philadelphia became a lessee for carbon black plants to be built in Lea County. The industry required one raw material- gas, and produced on one product- carbon black.

Lea County was chosen for the site because of the supply of cheap, natural gas. In 1944, the oil companies were interested only in the petroleum form the wells. millions of cubic feet of natural gas was routinely "flared off". In 1944, the Johnson Company signed a ten year contract to buy gas at the rate of three (.03) cents per 1,000 cubic feet.

The first producer of carbon black in Lea County was not the Johnson Company, however, it was the Columbia Carbon Company which opened a plant six miles directly south of Eunice in 1942. This plant was not developed under the DPO, rather, it was established by private industry. It was located on 160 acres which were originally the Boyd homestead.

Mr. Frank Werner, a native of Pennsylvania reared in Philadelphia , went to work for the Charles Enev Johnson Company in 1926. In 1944, the Johnson Company offered him a position at the carbon black plant which the company was preparing to put in operation in Lea County. He arrived at Hobbs in December, 1944.

The Johnson Company first selected a site on the south side of Monument Road owned by Will Terry who refused to sell the land to the company. The second site was owned by Earl Kornegay, Jess Raley and Albert Phillips. Most of the land purchased for the site belonged to Earl Kornegay and the plant became known as the "Kornegay plant." It was located south of Hobbs near Nadine. All the carbon black plants were located adjacent to the railroad to facilitate shipping. Work began on the plant in February 1945 with the construction by the United Engineers who had a field office in Hobbs. The plant had four units, each housing 40 carbon burners.

While the Kornegay plant was under construction, Johnson Company contracted for a second plant 14 miles south of Eunice on Highway 18. Construction on the second plant began late in the spring of 1945.It, also, was built by United Engineers. This plant was known, eventually, as the United plant.

At first, Mr. Werner, who was in charge of the clerical work at both locations, had difficulty in finding office workers. Hobbs was a small town and lacked the industry which develops clerical workers. The problem was solved by using dependents of Air Force personnel assigned to the Air Force base north of Hobbs. Many of the dependents were highly trained and quickly moved into the jobs. The company had to transport them from their homes to the plant sites.

With the advent of V-J Day in September 1945, the Government immediately stopped construction on all new plants. The plant under construction south of Eunice was shut down entirely except for security personnel.

The Kornegay plant, however, was already in production. Before V-J Day Johnson Company had difficulty recruiting workers because of the construction companies paid higher wages. Immediately after V-J Day with its stoppage of construction work, the situation changed dramatically and there were plenty of workers available for the production of carbon black.

The Government established the the War Assets Corporation to sell back to private business the plants built with Government money. Johnson Company refused to buy the Kornegay plant, choosing instead to lease it on a yearly basis.

Johnson Company did purchase the larger plant south of Eunice. In 1946 and late in the fall of that year construction was resumed. The first units went into operation in June, 1947.

The Kornegay plant continued to operate under lease to Johnson, and in the fall of 1947 the company moved most of the clerical workers from the Kornegay plant to the plant south of Eunice so all clerical work for both plants was handled from the latter plant.

The methods used in these plants was known as the "channel" method. Gas was burned under long steel channels and the carbon that formed on the bottom. When it reached a certain depth, the channel was run across a scraper which removed the carbon and it was conveyed to the processing plant. Temperatures in the burner houses was between 750-800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Carbon black in beads could be hauled in bulk and loaded through spouts directly into railroad cars or it could be stored in 25 and 50 pound packages in the warehouses. Carbon, when it burns does not produce a flame; rather, it smolders and is difficult to control.

During the 1950's the plant began to ship carbon by trucks. This method was used especially when the material was going to Houston for export.

The Eunice plant of the Johnson Company at the height of its production used 40 million cubic feet of gas per day and was capable of producing 80,000 pounds of carbon black per day. In actual practice, the usual production was more nearly 70,000 pounds per day.

The Columbia Carbon plant during its heyday produced between 70,000 and 80,000 pounds of carbon black per day.

In the early 1950's Johnson sold the plant to United Carom Company of Charleston, West Virginia. It was at this time that the plant became knows as the "United" plant- the name which it retained until it closed. In 1954 United Carbon sold the plant to International Printing Ink Company, a division of International Chemical Corporation. In 1963 the company merged with Ashland Oil. Ashland was interested in the petroleum rights of the company but it acquired the carbon black company as part of the deal. The plant closed in April 1970. Remnants of this plant can be seen 10 miles south of Eunice on Highway 18.

Subsequently, the plant was sold to Pat Sims and Tom Kennan who tore down the plant to recover the steel.

The southern plant of the Johnson Company ("United") had problems with the water supply in early days. The Monument Draw is a geographical flaw running across the area where the carbon plants were located. North of the Draw there was no water problem and the Kornegay and Columbia plants both had good water supplies. The southern Johnson plant was at first dependent on a local rancher Ben Harrison with whom they contracted for water. Whenever his payment check was even one day late, Mr. Harrison would cut off the water supply. Water was not needed in the production of carbon black, but it was needed for bath house and for cooking. The water problems were resolved when the company contracted with Mrs. Edith Davis Fanning for a well on her property.

During the earliest days there was a problem. Also, with the electrical supply. The plant purchased its electricity from the New Mexico Electric Company which had insufficient production to meet all demands., and the plant had to shutdown at times. During the ice storm of 1949, the plant had no electricity for 54 hours. 

In 1950 the Kornegay plant was sold to the Cabot Carbon Company. In 1954 the ten year gas contract at three cents per 1000 feet of gas ran out. The plant continued to operate until 1970 when the price of natural gas had risen to 70 cents per 1000 cubic feet. In addition, the gas was purified with sulphur removed so that it no longer produced as much carbon when it was burned. The Cabot Company dismantled the plant and moved it to Seagraves, Texas. 

The fourth carbon black plant in the Eunice area was built by Panhandle Carbon Company and was located five miles north of Eunice on the cut-off from highway 18. The company later reorganized as the Witco Company, and eventually was purchased by the Continental Carbon Company. 

The driver, headed south on Highway 18 from Ho0bbs who takes the cut-off to Eunice can see, just beyond the point where the road crosses the railroad tracks, an area where the ground is black. The abandoned building there is an existing remnant of a carbon black plant. It is the former plant of the Continental Carbon Company and a reminder of the days when gas was three cents per 1000 cubic feet and Lea County helped keep America on its wheels.

Note: The Black hulk of the Continental Carbon Company plant still stands as of June 2008.

Comment:

My mother, Lina Cleveland Long of Kermit, Texas said:" The black smoke coming from the stack, looked like a tornado, in the distance".