Built by the U.S. Government on the former Charleston airport site, the Institute site began operating in 1943 as a synthetic rubber plant to support World War II rubber supply efforts.  Union Carbide Corporation purchased the plant in 1947.  Rhone-Poulenc acquired the Institute site in December 1986 as part of the purchase of Union Carbide's agricultural chemical business.  Rhone-Poulenc merged with Hoechst in December 1999 and became Aventis. In May 2002, Aventis sold its CropScience to Bayer and created Bayer CropScience.

In the past 15 years, millions of dollars in capital investments have been made at the site with nearly half invested in projects designed to improve safety and/or environmental performance.

Click to enlarge. It took just 10 months for employees of Ford, Bacon and Davis to build a plant to make synthetic rubber for the war effort. Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corp. along with U.S. Rubber undertook the project in April 1942. By the end of 1943, the facility had produced 75 percent of the butadiene for the government's rubber program. The plant, built on Wertz Field Airport near Institute, produced 60 percent of all synthetic rubber made in the United States. The "Charleston Gazette" produced a special Synthetic Rubber supplement in June 1943, in which this photo appeared. The employees are presenting a $9,000 donation to the American Red Cross. Through payroll deductions, they also put $1.25 million into U.S. War Saving Bonds.


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