CHEMICAL
AND
ENGINEERING H A R R I S O N E. H O W E , Editor
PUBLISHED
BY
THE
V O L U M E 20
AMERICAN
CHEMICAL
MARCH 2 5 , 1 9 4 2
SOCIETY NUMBER6
Industrial Memphis
M
EMPHIS industry reflects her agricultural environment. Situated in the heart of the cotton country with the rich alluvial delta lands of Mississippi and Arkansas just down the river, Memphis is the world's largest cotton market and manufacturer of cottonseed products. As a result, the many cottonseed mills whose by-product meal and cake are valuable as animal foods, together with the several manufacturers of mixed feeds, make the c i t y the South's largest producer of livestock feeds, an important livestock market, and, despite the claims of Missouri, the largest mule market in the world. It is the world's largest hardwood lumber market and the South's largest producer and distributer of chemicals and drugs. Located on the Mississippi River half ws.y between Chicago and New Orleans, Memphis enjoys unique distribution advantages as a chief port on the Nation's inland water routes and the focal point of 10 major railroad systems. Many large industrial companies have recognized these advantages and in the recent trends toward decentralization have established branch plants or distribution headquarters
in Memphis. This trend has made Memphis the largest nonproducing steel distributer in the Nation. Many of the largest steel companies of the North and East have private barge shipping operations to warehouses here. Among these are Jones-Laughlin Steel Corp., Wheeling Steel Corp., Youngstown Steel Corp., and Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. Bethlehem Steel Corp. and several others maintain district sales offices in Memphis, ranking it among the first 20 cities of the Nation as a wholesale center. The oldest steel fabricating plant in the city, the Virginia Bridge Co., subsidiary of the United States Steel Corp., distributes its products from Memphis to 20 states including California and the Pacific Northwest. In the past year, many industrial concerns in Memphis have seen increasing amounts of their output directed to national defense. Some plants have entirely changed their schedule of production, and a number of new industries have been located in Memphis as a direct result of the defense program. Cottonseed products comprise the larg-
est group of manufacturers in Memphis, with eight oil mills crushing cottonseed, four refineries, three hydrogénation plants, and one pulp plant purifying cotton 1 inters. The Southern Cotton Oil Co., first large cotton oil plant to be established here, is a subsidiary of Wesson Oil and Snowdrift Co. Three main divisions of the plant consist of a crude oil mill, a refinery, and a shortening plant. In refining crude cottonseed oil, it is first treated with dilute caustic to remove free fatty acids, bleached with an absorbent earth, and sent to the shortening plant to be finished in any of several ways. By mere chilling and filtering off the saturated glycerides that are thereby solidified, a pure salad oil is obtained. Or the bleached oil may be mixed with either hardened vegetable oil or animal fats to make compound shortening, sometimes called compound lard. Hardened vegetable oil is a completely hydrogenated cottonseed oil. In this form the product is fully saturated and approaches the hardness of stone. Partial hydrogénation of cottonseed oil, however, gives the most desirable type of vegetable shortening.
Aerial view of McCallum Robinson and the Federal Compress and Storage Co. V O L U M E
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Southern Cotton O i l Co. Many brands of this product are on the market and they are customarily packed in sealed cans, while the more perishable compound shortening is usually put up in waxed paper boxes. As the final treatment, all forms of vegetable shortening and salad oil are deodorized by blowing through with steam. There are two other hydrogénation plants in Memphis. Cudahy's Leewood Refinery is the largest of the several refineries operated by this company in the country. Humko is a Memphis-owned plant of about the same size. These latter plants manufacture their hydrogen by the well-known iron-steam process, whereas Southern Cotton Oil Co. uses electrolysis. All three plants make all of the abovementioned types of shortening. Swift & Co. has a cottonseed oil mill and a refinery in Memphis, but does not hydrogenate there. Its hardened oil is brought in t o make compound shortening. Armour operates the Memphis Cotton Oil Mill. The Perkins Oil Co. has two seedcrushing mills, one in Memphis and the other across the river in West Memphis, Ark. Aside from the cotton oil mill and the pulp plant, the Buckeye Cotton Oil Co. also operates a mill crushing soybeans. Necessary adjuncts to cottonseed processing are the laboratories for grading seed, oil, and lint purchases and the control of the manufactured products. Many plants maintain their own facilities, but
besides these are the vitally important commercial laboratories which do official cottonseed grading under government license. There are two such laboratories in Memphis, both in the heart of the business district on "Cotton Row", as that section of Front Street is sometimes called.
Woodson-Tenant Laboratories, Inc., is devoted exclusively to cottonseed, soybeans, and their products. This includes the analysis and grading of cottonseed, analysis of cake and meal for protein, of vegetable oils for fatty acids, and refining yield and cotton linters for alpha cellulose. Founded in 1917, Barrow-Agee Laboratories, Inc., is the largest commercial laboratory in the South. An interesting feature of the laboratory is the unique calculating table where space is provided for eight people to figure yields and analyses of cottonseed from the experimental data. During the rush season from September through December, several thousand individual analyses per day are cleared over this table. In addition to cottonseed and soybean products, thi3 laboratory maintains an engineering department for the testing of materials used in construction. Besides its main laboratory in Memphis, Barrow-Agee has branch laboratories in Shreveport, La., Jackson and Leland, Miss., and Cairo, 111. Rounding out the cotton picture are the Bemis Bag Co., makers çf burlap, cotton, and paper bags, and the American Finishing Co., dyers and finishers of cotton cloth. Cotton damaged by fire and water is salvaged by McCallum & Robinson, Inc. The damaged materials are separated from the good which are cleaned, spun into yarn, and made into blankets, mops, and rugs.
Calculating table at Barrow-Agee Laboratories, Inc.
The AMEBICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY assumes no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by contributors to its publications. Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Publication Office, 20th & Northampton Sts., Baston, Penna. Editorial Office, 1155 16th St., N . W. t Washington, D . C.; Telephone, Republic 5301; Cable, Jiechem (Washington). Advertising Department, 332 West 42nd St., New York, N. Y.; Telephone, Bryant 9-4430. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at Easton, Penna., under the act of March 3, 1879, as 24 times a year on the 10th and 25th. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized July 13, 1918. Annual subscription rate, S2.00. Foreign postage to countries not in the Pan American Union, $0.60; Canadian postage, SO.20 Single copies, SO 15 Special rates to members. n N 5 . c l a i . m s c a n b e allowed for copies of journals lost in the mails unless such claims are received within 60 days of the date of issue, and no claims will be allowed for issues lost as a result of insufficient notice of change of address. (Ten days' advance notice required.) "Missing from files" cannot be accepted as the reason for honoring a claim. Charles L. Parsons, Business Manager, 1155 16th St., N. W., Washington, D. C U S A
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CHEMICAL
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A t Ε. L. Bruce C o . , manufacturer of wood floor blocks
Agricultural insecticides are manufac tured in Memphis by the Commercial Chemical Co. An entirely seasonal busi ness with the demand dictated by t h e whims of the weather and insect cycles, this company operates during the growing season from March to November in a model plant where even the shipping drums are fabricated in its own shop. The world's largest producer exclusively of calcium arsenate, the company dis tributes its product wherever cotton is grown, including Peru, India, and Aus tralia. The Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corp., first to produce phosphate fertilizers, has 42 factories throughout the North, East, and South. Built before the turn of t h e century, the Memphis plant makes sul furic acid by the lead chamber process for the production of superphosphates. Occu pying a central position in regard to raw materials, this plant brings together Texas sulfur and phosphate rock from Middle Tennessee with smaller amounts of Chilean nitrate and potash from New Mexico. Three of the four leading meat packers of the Nation have abattoirs at the Mem phis stockyards. Swift and Cudahy o p erate plants under their own names, while Armour operates the Memphis Packing Co. as a subsidiary. Closely allied to the meat packing in dustry is the Tennessee Soap Co., manu facturing yellow laundry soap from tallow, brown grease, and rosin, while cotton seed foots are utilized to make washing powder. By-product glycerol is sold to the plastics industry. Built eight 3rears ago by t h e Humko Co. as an experimental plant handling only refinery foots, the plant is now independent and is the only soap factory in the State of Tennessee. V O L U M E
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Practically all known w o o d products are manufactured in the State, upholding a tra dition of wood utilization established since the War between the States. They include
hardwood flooring, fine veneers and panel ing, oak whisky casks, golf shafts and blocks, battery separators, caskets, fur niture dimension stock, lawn furniture, handles for agricultural tools, and shuttles for cotton mills. Leaders in this industry in Memphis are Nickey Bros., established three generations ago as the first com mercial user of gum timber in the Nation, Chickasaw Cooperage Co., makers of barrels with five branch plants and many lumber mills throughout the country, and E. L. Bruce Co. which recently dramatized the beauty and permanency of wooden floor blocks by selling 7,000,000 square feet of hardwood blocks used in t h e vast new construction of Parkchester residen tial group in N e w York City. Representing the chemical industry in the hardwood development of Memphis is the Forest Products Chemical Co., wood distillers making acetic acid, methyl alcohol, and many by-products and deriva tives. Using the Suida process of vaporphase extraction, the company was a pio neer in the use of direct methods for the production of acetic acid. I t has con tinued to keep pace with modern develop ments and now uses an azeotropic dis tillation with ethyl acetate to produce anhydrous acetic acid. In t h e utilization of by-products, Forest Products was the first to develop the commercial idea of
Giant recovery towers in arsenic a c i d plant of Commercial Chemical C o . M A R C H
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Bottling and finishing line at J. R. Watkins Co.
sacking and distributing charcoal for domestic use in the South. Associated with Forest Products Chemi cal Co. is the Crossett Chemical Co. of Crossett, Ark., some 200 miles southwest of Memphis. This plant grew out of the experience gained at Forest Products and uses the same processes. Its capacity of 100 cords of wood per day is slightly higher than that of the Memphis plant, but it sends its crude alcohol there for refining. Although not directly a defense in dustry, acetic acid, wood alcohol, and charcoal are under mandatory control, and the current ouput is not sufficient to supply the demand. As a result, a num ber of the smaller wood distillers that were forced out of business by competition from synthetic acetic acid and methanol during the depression years are reopening. Forest Products Chemical Co., however, as one of the larger wood distillers of this coun try, has been in continuous operation for over 30 years. Among the large manufacturers of phar maceuticals and proprietaries in Memphis is the Van Vleet-Ellis Division of McKesson-Robbins, largest wholesale drug con cern in the Nation. This division puts on its own line of drugs in addition to those with the McKesson-Robbins label and is one of the five manufacturing plants in the company with a complete system of laboratory control. Plough, Inc., is one of the few manufacturers of proprietaries operating a pharmacological laboratory. T h e main plant is in Memphis with branches in South and Central America. J. R. Watkins is the largest producer in the world of vanilla and pepper, and its line of insecticides is growing rapidly. Its experimental farm just outside the city has recently been closed to visitors for the duration. The shortage of tin is being 364
felt by t h e Wm. A. Webster Co. Its shaving and dental creams are now put up in collapsible tubes of substitute material. Compressed tablets and coated pills are also included in the products manufactured by this company. The paint and varnish industry is rep resented in the Memphis district by three manufacturers, the DeSoto Paint & Varnish Co., True Tagg Paint Co., and Southern Shellac Manufacturing Co. The D e S o t o Paint & Varnish Co., manu facturing a complete line of paints for
Sears, Roebuck & Co. in the South and Southwestern territories, operates one of the South's largest and most completely equipped paint and varnish manufactur ing plants. It also manufactures a com plete line of paints and varnishes for its own sales. True Tagg Paint Co. also manufacturers a complete line of paint and varnish products, both for industry and con sumers' use. T h e Southern Shellac Manufacturing Co. is the only importer and bleacher of shellac in the South. It is also the only shellac manufacturer in the country able to produce bleached shellac in a continuous process, this position having been attained through the building and installation of a unique modification of the flash drying system for drying heat-sensitive products. Recent development of the Yazoo oil fields in Mississippi has resulted *n the establishment of the Delta Refining Co. in Memphis, the first complete oil refinery in the State of Tennessee. The plant was built in 1941 to produce asphalt, but since the demand has been greater for some of the lighter fractions, a cracking unit has been added. Among decentralized industries estab lished in Memphis, the foremost are the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. which opened its plant there in 1937 and the duPont company which started the pro duction of smokeless powder there late in 1940. Another is Globe-Union, branch of the Milwaukee firm manufacturing storage batteries. Savings of 50 per cent are made in transportation costs of the heavy materials to be made into batteries for distribution in the South.
Exterior view of the testing laboratory οί Layne & Bowler, Inc., In Memphis, show ing rectangular wier, wier pond, and play pipes with venturi throats. Both methods of measuring water ate used simultaneously, and each serves as a check on the other.
CHEMICAL
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ENGINEERING
NEWS
1872, the American Snuff Co. is one of the world's largest producers of snuff. Using only domestic leaf, the Memphis plant employs modern equipment for its many operations i n c l u d i n g cutting and grinding the tobacco, making tin cans, and packaging the finished product. Concluding the long list of products manufactured there that contribute t o the important and stabilizing influence Operations in the closing and packaging of collapsible tubes containing shaving cream at the Wm. A . Webster Co. of a diversified industry in Memphis are railroad brake shoes and switches, automobile Foremost among machine products lifts, metal drums and cans, lamp chimmanufactured in Memphis are the vertical neys and hand-blown glass bottles, waxed turbine pumps made b y Layne & Bowler, paper, shoe polish, and beer. Inc. These pumps are used in municipal, More information about the industries of industrial, and agricultural well installaMemphis will be published for CHEMICAL tions and as booster pumps for fire or other AND ENGINEERING N B W S readers in the services requiring high pressures. T h e April 10 issue. extremely limited space available for the operation of a turbine pump in well casings complicates the problem of design and manufacture. These are closely controlled by performing all operations at the MemAPRIL 20-23 phis shops, from the arrival of the raw metals t o shipping t h e finished pumps. j MEMPHIS Starting with the engineering and design department, the plant comprises a pattern shop, complete foundry and core-making shop, machine shop, and hydraulic testing laboratory. One of t h e oldest industries in Memphis is also one of its largest. Established in
IXEEPABREAST OF YOUR A.C.S.
Walter E. Chandler, M ayor of Memphis
TOOLEY-MYRON STUDIOS
JV/TAYOR Walter E. Chandler will welcome the AMERICAN CHEMICAL S O -
CIETY t o Memphis on the opening d a y of its meeting, April 20. This welcome from the Mayor of our host city carries special significance. Mr. Chandler, at t h e request of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL
SOCIETY, through the good offices of G. Worthen Agee, introduced House Bill N o . 7709 in the 1st Session of the 75th Congress, and this bill gave national incorporation t o the AMERICAN CHEMICAL
SOCIETY. An identical bill was introduced at the same time by Senator Walter F . George as Senate Bill N o . 2633. B o t h bills were considered by appropriate committees, Mr. Chandler himself being a member of the Judiciary Committee of the House t o which his bill was referred. With the aid of recommendations from the War Department, N a v y Department, Department of Commerce, Department of the Interior, and Department of Agriculture, the bills were passed by the House and Senate, the first known a s the Chandler Bill and the second as the George Bill. On the final day of the session, the Chandler Bill was, by unanimous consent, substituted for the George Bill in the Senate and was passed by Congress and then signed by the President on August 25, 1937. Thus, it was the Chandler Bill, substituted for the identical George Bill, which
gave
the AMERICAN
CHEMICAL
SOCIETY the privileges it now possesses and which have added much t o its opportunities for usefulness. T h e gratitude of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY t o both
Congressman Chandler and Senator George, and t o others of the Judiciary Committee who aided in its passage, has often been expressed, but it is again emphasized as Mr. Chandler himself will welcome us t o Memphis.
Pouring a pump head casting at the Layne & Bowler foundry in Memphis, scene of the approaching A . C. S. meeting. V O L U M E
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CHARLES L. PARSONS,
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