the old builings are being removed

[strollingbonez]

http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww223/strollingbones/033-7_zpsa3cacd5d.jpg (http://s722.photobucket.com/user/strollingbones/media/033-7_zpsa3cacd5d.jpg.html)

they begin tearing down the old buildings....note the chemical vat that cover the top floor

[strollingbonez]

http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww223/strollingbones/042_zpsd9921497.jpg (http://s722.photobucket.com/user/strollingbones/media/042_zpsd9921497.jpg.html)

http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww223/strollingbones/043_zpsec061caa.jpg (http://s722.photobucket.com/user/strollingbones/media/043_zpsec061caa.jpg.html)

[strollingbonez]

http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww223/strollingbones/046_zps4543eb33.jpg (http://s722.photobucket.com/user/strollingbones/media/046_zps4543eb33.jpg.html)

[junie]

http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww223/strollingbones/042_zpsd9921497.jpg (http://s722.photobucket.com/user/strollingbones/media/042_zpsd9921497.jpg.html)

http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww223/strollingbones/043_zpsec061caa.jpg (http://s722.photobucket.com/user/strollingbones/media/043_zpsec061caa.jpg.html)



wow! what kind of factory was that...?

[strollingbonez]

i thought it was the eastman kodack chemical but i was wrong...it was another chemical company...right near it is a toxic field...where they dumped old chemicals..we like to go walking there...in spite of the keep out signs etc....i am waiting for our feet to fall off...

[strollingbonez]

Beginning during the late 1920s, German and Dutch business investors established two major rayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon) manufacturing plants (Bemberg and the North American Rayon Corporation) in Elizabethton along the banks of the Watauga River, producing rayon material for both U.S. domestic and export markets. Even today, you can find examples of the construction or major renovation of Elizabethton buildings located within the downtown area that can be easily dated from the Elizabethton rayon economic boom of the late 1920s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethton,_Tennessee

[KC]

It is sad when these types of buildings are torn down, because the surrounding area is likely too polluted for others to put it to good use. It's the same problem with the now demolished Chrysler plant in my hometown. There are a lot of people who want a park there, others who want to have a memorial to auto workers, but most likely it will not be used for anything.

[strollingbonez]

i love the old buildings....love to take pics of them.....however if i get caught....my husband is never pleased with the phone calls that begin with 'you need to do something about you'r woman'

[junie]

In October 1926 American Bemberg began the manufacture of "artificial silk," or rayon, at its new plant in Elizabethton. The parent company, J. P. Bemberg, was the German affiliate of Vereinigte Glanzstoff Fabriken (VGF), one of the international giants in the production of rayon. Two years later, in August 1928, VGF opened another rayon plant in the small East Tennessee town. This one, then called American Glanzstoff but known now as North American Rayon Corporation, made rayon by the viscose process, whereas Bemberg utilized the cuprammonium process. By the end of 1928 employment at the two plants exceeded 3,000 workers.

By the early 1970s Bemberg was in serious financial trouble. The cuprammonium process it used produced toxic wastes that the company dumped into the Watauga River. Bemberg found it could not comply with Environmental Protection Agency orders to clean up its wastes and still turn a profit. As a consequence, in December 1970 El Paso announced that Beaunit was going to suspend all operations at the Bemberg factory. But the following March Beaunit sold the Bemberg plant, together with 140 acres of land around the plant, for $350,000 to Abner Industries.

Abner acquired an Elizabethton address and officially changed the company name to Bemberg Industries. The new president, A. A. Rosen, hired as executive vice-president Buford Goldstein, a Johnson City native who had held a similar position with Beaunit, and Rosen and Goldstein became the major investors in Bemberg. The new Bemberg continued to experience financial difficulties, though, and again was sold in 1973 to a group of investors called RG Associates, which also changed its name to Bemberg Industries. Still, the company failed to turn a profit and had to face escalating debts. On February 16, 1974, Bemberg filed a petition for bankruptcy.
With Bemberg's demise, only North American Rayon remained operational. But in November 1976, El Paso announced that in 1977 Beaunit would be sold to a holding company named BEM. BEM purchased Beaunit's assets and in turn sold them to Beaunit II, an unaffiliated corporation set up for the purpose of securing those assets. The Beaunit II investment group that purchased the assets was known as TA Associates. TA continued to operate the plant under the name North American Rayon Corporation. In 1978 TA sold the company to Elizabethton businessman James Walker, who earlier had purchased the abandoned Bemberg building.



North American Rayon survived and by the early 1980s was manufacturing rayon for apparel, home furnishings, and industrial products. In order to comply with environmental regulations, however, the company was faced with the prospect of building a water treatment facility. With an unstable market for rayon, NARC officials expressed doubt that profits would be large enough to finance the treatment plant. By the fall of 1985 owner Walker began negotiations with management and union officials to have the employees become company stockholders. Local 2207 voted down the proposed plan, but was instructed by the UTW international office to accept the restructuring designed to turn the workers into "employee-owners." The plan went into effect in December 1985, and, from that point through 1988, wages increased and employee-owners received dividends. In August 1988 North American Rayon acquired MKS Polyester, which it renamed North American Polyester. The company also contracted with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to make carbonized rayon for the lining of the nozzles of the solid rocket motors that boost the space shuttle into orbit.


But the 1990s again ushered in hard times for North American Rayon. Increased competition from imports has hurt the company. Labor relations, seldom harmonious in the past, have continued to be poor as employees feel poorly informed about operations and plant management. In June 1996 NAR Polyester shut down, leaving 70 workers unemployed. Employment at the rayon plant was only at 700 in late 1996, and it continued to decrease until the end of the century.


On February 25, 2000, an enormous fire broke out in the North American Rayon plant. It took firefighters a week to extinguish the flames. The plant immediately closed for business. A year later, in mid-February 2001, the North American Rayon plant was demolished, ending a significant era in the industrial history of Appalachian Tennessee.



http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1005

[strollingbonez]

the area we walk is posted and all but no one ever says anything to us....there are no birds...no rabbits..no ground animals....no snakes...and its on the river

[Sytha]

wow.

any idea what the chemicals are?