The Industrial History of Southwest Louisiana

Situated near the Louisiana Gulf Coast, Calcasieu Parish was destined to become the industrial hub it is today. The petrochemical demands of a nation at war with the Axis powers in two theaters of operations, conspired to turn Southwest Louisiana into one of the world's most important industrial corridors.

But it was sulfur rather than petroleum that made the first move to supplant lumber and agriculture as the area's economic bread and butter. Using their patented "Frasch process," the Union Sulphur Company began pumping liquefied sulfur out of a dome located about nine miles west of Lake Charles in 1896, eventually, of course, engendering the City of Sulphur. By the turn of the century, the mine was the largest in the world, producing about 4,000 tons per day. Incidentally, it was along the flanks of this sulfur dome that the first successful crude oil wells in the Lake Area were drilled. And with productive fields yielding high-quality Louisiana sweet crude a mere stone's throw away in Jennings and Eunice, the elements that would insure Lake Charles a place among the great industrial centers of the world were falling into place.

Of course, industry requires transportation, and while Lake Charles had been designated an official port of entry by an act of Congress as early as the Civil War, it wasn't until about 1920 that a real push was made to elevate the status of the Port of Lake Charles. Realizing that the lumber industry had all but depleted the once vast stands of virgin pine surrounding the lake, and painfully aware that the bulk of the region's valuable rice crop was being shipped through the ports of Beaumont and New Orleans, residents decided that if the area was to retain its industrial strength, Lake Charles would have to become a legitimate seaport. When their appeal for federal assistance to open a deep-water channel to the Gulf of Mexico was denied, the issue was taken to the people of Lake Charles, and in 1922, in a bold move unprecedented for a community of its size, the citizens voted to fund the project themselves. After several bond issues and an act of the State Legislature, the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District became a reality in 1924.

The Mathieson Alkali Works facility, later to be known as Olin Mathieson, and ultimately evolving into the facility mostly owned by Lyondell Chemical Company, is generally regarded as the "father" of the Calcasieu Parish chemical industry. Completing construction of their original caustic soda manufacturing works here in 1934, Mathieson became the first large chemical manufacturer to locate a plant in the Lake Charles area in order to take advantage of the community's modern port facility and access to world markets.  Sadly this facility has partially relocated with other portions being idle due to poor market conditions and increased foreign competition.

The real catalyst for industrial development in the Lake Charles area, however, was the onset of World War II. The United States military machine needed fuel, lubricants, and synthetic rubber for its trucks, tanks and planes, and Lake Charles provided ready access to all of the elements needed to expedite their production and delivery. Raw materials like crude oil and natural gas, abundant water for manufacturing processes, and a waterway for the ships and barges that would transport the manufactured products, made Southwest Louisiana a natural choice.

Among the facilities whose proliferation here was driven largely by war-time demand are the Continental Oil Company refinery, now ConocoPhillips, completed in 1941, the Firestone synthetic rubber plant, now Firestone Polymers, which began production in 1943, and the Cities Service refinery, now CITGO, brought on line in 1944.

The post-war years saw unprecedented economic prosperity in the U.S., and many companies found no better place than the local industrial corridor to build the facilities they needed to meet the country's demand for consumer products. Among the facilities which sprang up around Lake Charles in the wake of post-war industrial demand was the caustic soda and chlorine plant opened in 1947 by the Columbia-Southern Company, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, now PPG Industries. PPG still owns and operates the much-expanded plant, which is now PPG’s largest manufacturing facility.

Another example of the area's immediate post-war industrial development was the advent of Cit-Con Oil Company in 1949. The lubricants and wax plant was originally built and operated jointly by Cities Service Company and Conoco, but was idled in 2008. The facility is wholly owned by Citgo, but is not currently operating.

Industrial development in the area has continued since those post-war years. The 1950's saw the advent of the Davison Chemical Company catalyst plant, now Grace Davison, in 1953, as well as the completion in 1959 of the Gulf States Utilities Nelson Power Station, now owned and operated by Entergy, Inc.

In 1961, the Hercules polyolefins plant, now Basell-Lyondell, Inc., began operation, followed in 1961 by the formation of Conoco Chemicals with what was then the world’s largest synthetic alcohol plant. In 1984, Vista Chemicals took over the facility, which is now called Sasol North America.

Air Liquide began its presence in Lake Charles in 1963 as Lincoln Big Three. Also making its debut here in the sixties was Reynolds Metals, now Alcoa, which opened its Lake Charles facility in 1969 and the Conoco VCM Plant, now owned by Georgia Gulf.

In the mid-seventies, several companies started up operations in Calcasieu Parish. Jupiter Chemicals, now Westlake TDC, opened its doors in 1975, followed closely that same year by Certainteed and SRI - now Waste Management. The Gulf Oil Company calcined coke plant, now CII, opened in 1978.

Trunkline LNG opened its facility here in 1981, and continues to grow. In 1984, the Cities Service Company was bought out by Occidental Petroleum. This move ultimately resulted in the presence of the Occidental Chemical Corporation, or OxyChem, facility here, which was eventually called Equistar Chemical and has since been idled.  Westlake Chemical also began its operation here after purchasing the original Cities Service polymer plant in 1986. Major expansions followed for Westlake with the commissioning of their polyethylene plant in 1988 and their petrochemicals plant in 1989.

The nineties have seen major expansions, including several joint-venture projects, for many of the larger Lake Area industrial facilities already in operation.  This decade also saw the advent of both Louisiana Pigment in 1992 and, in 1994, BioLab, which was originally part of the Olin facility. In 1999, the remainder of the Olin specialty chemicals facility became ARCH chemicals. Dynegy also opened its doors that year, as did Georgia Gulf, when they purchased a local vinyl production facility. 

 Most recently, in 2009, Cameron LNG (a division of Sempra Energy) started up it’s facility in Cameron Parish and also became a member of the Lake Area Industry Alliance.

This abbreviated industrial history of LAIA member companies doesn't touch on the hundreds of contractors, suppliers and consulting companies whose stories are also woven into this area's economic tapestry. In concert with the manufacturing facilities they serve, these companies constitute the commercial backbone of Southwest Louisiana.

And the dynamic story of the Lake Area's industrial economic engine is still unfolding. As long as there is a world-wide demand for the very basics of day-to-day life -- from gasoline to laundry detergent, golf balls to athletic shoes, window glass to water pipes -- the industries of Southwest Louisiana will continue to make the things that make life better.