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Dr. Heinrich
Koppers and his H. Koppers company built the first coke ovens to
recover byproducts in Joliet, Illinois.
H. Koppers Company incorporated.
Koppers acquired by American industrialists.
H. B. Rust became president of the firm. There were 85 employees.
Koppers relocated to Pittsburgh.
Research department was established in the Mellon Institute.
For the next
three years H. Koppers Co. built an average of one complete coke
plant every 60 days.
Bought facilities to begin coal
chemical processing.
Developed a process to remove
naphthalene from gas, eliminating a cause of blockages in gas lines.
Pioneered commercial development
of gas dehydration in the U.S.
Added metal fabrication. Purchased
American Tar Products, which processed tar in New England. This
gave Koppers an all-important process to make pitch coke from coal
tar pitch.
Koppers Building built
in Pittsburgh as company headquarters.
Construction started on plant
to remove phenol from ammonia liquor of coke plants in a process
developed by Koppers Research Department.
Acquired plant equipment manufacturer
Bartlett-Hayward Company of Baltimore. Its subsidiary, The American
Hammered Piston Ring Co., gave Koppers Company entry into the production
of automobile and aircraft piston rings, a business boosted by
increased aircraft production in World War II.
Wood treating operations began.
Koppers Company received the John
Price Wetherill Medal from The Franklin Institute for the “development
for successful systems for the liquid purification of gases.”
The Public Utilities Holding Company
Act was passed by Congress, forcing Koppers to sell its interest
in Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates, which included coal mining
and railroad operations.
Chemical and tar processing operations
integrated into one division. First liquid purification plant built
to recover hydrogen sulfide gas to manufacture sulfuric acid.
Koppers Company built
25 byproduct coke plants, along with many gas purification plants
that produced various chemicals.
Complete construction of styrene-butadiene
plant in Kobuta, Pa., built for the U.S. defense department. Koppers
Company purchased the Kobuta plant from the government to enter
plastics industry three years later.
Company reorganized from 100 subsidiaries
into single corporate unit. Stock first sold publicly. Now operating
21 wood treatment plants, the largest capacity in the country. Company's first integrated steel plant under construction
in Chile.
Extended into coal-petroleum chemicals
and built a large-capacity ethylbenzene plant in Port Arthur, Texas.
Introduced Dylite expandable polystyrene
plastic in U.S.
Dedicated new research facility,
Monroeville Research Center.
Expanded wood activities in glue-laminated
structural wood products.
Completed construction of integrated
steel plant in Turkey.
Reorganized the plastics division
to form Sinclair-Koppers Company.
Expanded forest products operations,
became largest producer of spruce lumber in North America.
The Koppers Company had 125 plants
in 32 states, more than 13,000 employees and about 17,000 stockholders.
Monessen Coke oven
rebuilt making it one of the most modern coking facilities in the
U.S.
The Koppers Company was acquired
by the Beazer organization. Some of the assets of the Koppers Company
(including the Koppers name) were sold to a management-led group
to form Koppers Industries, Inc., now Koppers Inc., the new Koppers.
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