Texas Almanac, 1952-1953 Page: 241
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TEXAS MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.
CHEMICALS AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES
This classification by the Bureau of the
Census includes, first, the two broad fields of
chemicals, organic (vegetable and animal) and
inorganic (mineral), purely as chemical prod-
ucts. Second, it includes drugs and medicines,
soaps and related products, paints and var-
nishes, fertilizers, and vegetable and animal
oils such as cottonseed oil, peanut oil. grease
and tallow.
This somewhat heterogeneous grouping
under the heading of chemical industries
comes from the rapid shift in many industries
because of the chemicalization of the manu-
facturing processes.
Manufacturing is basically a procedure in
which things are (1) taken apart and then
(2) put back together in different combina-
tions. The taking apart may be done by
grinding, cutting, melting and other processes
and the putting together by mixing, molding.
nailing and other processes. These were the
methods usually used in the era of mechani-
cal processes in manufacturing.
When the chemist came into the manufac-
turing industries and began taking the mole-
cule apart and putting it back together in
different combinations, the manufacturing in-
dustries took on many new aspects. Formerly
the "chemical industries" included such man-
ufactures as drugs, dyes, acids. A large pro-
portion of manufacturing processes that were
formerly purely mechanical in nature are
loday using chemical processes wholly, or in
part.
Consequently it is often a question whether
to classify a commodity or article as a chemi-
cal or under some separate heading. For
example, petroleum refining was formerly a
mechanical process of separating the lighter
from the heavier hydrocarbon liquids. Today
the products of the big petroleum refineries
are all chemical s in the strictest sense of the
word, produced by complicated chemical
processes. However, for practical purposes the
Bureau of the Census classes petroleum re-
fining separately.
But even aside from petroleum refining the
new chemical processes have nowhere pro-
duced greater results than in the areas pro-
ducing petroleum and natural gas. While the
chemical processes have invaded many fields
of industrial processing other than oil and
gas they have been peculiarly adapted to
processing the hydrocarbons that, in varying
proportions of hydrogen and carbon, consti-
tute thp te whole scale from natural gas to the
heaviest petroleum.
Manufacturing industries in Texas. classed
as Chemicals and Allied Products by the
Bureau of the Census, jumped from 6,847
Production workers in 1939 to 17,475 in 1947,
highest percentage of any large industrial
group. In 1947 this classification had a total
of establishments with 23.552 employees.
including administrative and clerical. Total
value added by manufacture was $234,496,000.
These figures reflect the most significant
development in Texas industry in recent
years, possibly the most significant in the
entire history of Texas' industrial develop-
menl. Almost overnight the chemical indus-Re ORAVINA- IS
tries have become a very important factor
in the Texas economy.
It is further significant that, within this
group, the most rapid progress was made by
the newest and most advanced types of chem-
ical industry. During the 1939-1947 interval
of eight years. industrial inorganic chemicals
increased employment from 702 to 1,642. In-
dustrial organic chemicals saw employment
of production workers jump from a number
so small that it was not released for fear of
making public individual operations in 1939
to 6.962 in 1947. It is generally realized in the
industrial world today that chemical indus-
tries will dominate the field within a few
years. Never in world industry has there been
such rapid advance of industrial technique
and process.
The big development of the chemical indus-
tries in Texas began a few years before
World War II. In some instances, they were
accelerated by the wartime demands because
they produced chemicals needed in munitions
and other war materials. In other instances
they were delayed until after the war because
their products were for civilian consumption,
primarily.
One of the pioneers of industrial chemical
development in Texas was the Southern
Alkali Corporation at Corpus Christi. Begun
before the war, stimulated by wartime de-
mands and sustained at high level of produc-
tion since the war has been the Dow Chemical
industry at Freeport which extracts mag-
nesium, bromine and more than one hundred
other chemicals from sea water. The Mon-
santo Chemical Works at Texas City, pro-
ducing styrene, toluene and other chemicals.
for synthetic rubber manufacture and other
industry, is another chemical giant of the
Texas industrial community. Between Kings-
ville and Bishop is the big chemical plant of
the Celanese Corporation turning natural gas
into sixteen or twenty chemicals used in the
manufacture of synthetic fibers from cellulose.
The Du Pont establishments at Orange, La
Porte and Victoria produce chemicals, in-
cluding nylon salt from which nylon fabrics
are made.
The several large synthetic rubber plants
at Houston, Baytown. Port Neches and
Borger were placed in the Rubber Products
classification by the ('ensus Bureau but they
are modern chemical plants of the first order.
After the war several of them were reduced
to stand-by basis, but were being reactivated
in 1950 and 1951. They are rubber producers
for future civilian, as well as wartime, needs.
Other big chemical plants include Carthage
Hydrocol, Inc.. at Brownsville, producing
synthetic gasoline from gas and other chemi-
cals; Carbide and Carbon Chemicals at Texas
City, producing a long line of industrial
chemicals; Diamond Alkali at Pasadena.
Jefferson Chemical at Port Neches, the Ma-
thieson Chemical Corporation at Beaumont,
Port Arthur and Houston. producing sulphuric
acid, caustic soda, soda ash and other chemi-
cals, and Stauffer Chemical Company at
Freeport and Houston, producing sulphur and
sulphur chemicals.
A survey by the Houston Chamber of
Commerce showed that on Jan. 1, 1951, chemi-
cal plants along the Gulf coast alone had a
value of about $750,000,000 with an additionalA REAL ART" .
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Texas Almanac, 1952-1953, book, 1951; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117137/m1/243/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.