My father, Herbert “Eldon” Myers, was very thankful when Industrial Rayon came to Covington. The Myers’ had a successful plumbing business with plenty of work. However, times were hard, money and jobs were scarce, and most of their customers just did not have enough money to pay plumbers.

My father went to work immediately for Industrial Rayon, and started by pushing a wheel barrow in laying the plant’s foundation. He was around twenty-five years old. He worked for Industrial Rayon until they closed. He was a Shift Engineer in the Powerhouse for a number of years, and as such, was one of the last Industrial Rayon employees to leave. The salaried employees received a generous severance pay when the plant closed.

My mother and my aunt kept boarders when the plant started, and for a few years after. They lived in Edgemont, and were in walking distance to the plant. There was a housing shortage. Two of the lady boarders were single, and from the Fincastle area. They would go home when they had a couple days off. My parents became life long friends
with the ladies and their families.

Industrial Rayon would have a Christmas party for the salaried employees and their family each year. I can remember that they were a fun time for us kids with games, gifts, and food.

PEGGY MYERS DOYLE
August 15, 2008

From web site www.bobsfam.com/humptree/wga6 . 2/1/08
Humphries, Allen Byrd Sr. (1876 - 1938) - male
b. 15 MAR 1876 in Alleghany Co., VA
d. 24 FEB 1938 in Covington, VA
father: Humphries, Logan Smith (1830 - 1893)
mother: Matheney, Sarah Elizabeth (1840 - 1929)

Byrd was quite an entrepreneur. He ran a sawmill, cutting cross-ties for the railroad being built through the Potts Creek area. He also had a stave mill and a canning factory where they canned tomatoes and other vegetables. He later ran a dairy farm, which was called "Blue Grass Dairy" and delivered milk to customers in Covington. He also ran a country store which carried clothing and shoes, groceries, and yard goods which sold for as little as 6 cents/yard. There was kerosene, nails, horseshoes, hardware, and of course, the one item no country store would be complete without candy. There was a big bell which the customers rang in case no one was in the store which was located about 100 feet from Byrd's house. The dirt roadbed, cut down by the steady wagon, buggy and horseback traffic of patrons, is still visible to this day cutting across the valley through pasture fields.

Byrd had the only car in Rich Patch, first a Model T Ford and then a Whippet. He basically operated the first and only taxi service ever to serve Rich Patch, picking up extra cash driving people to Covington. Byrd and Ida attended the Jamestown Exposition in 1907. Among the souvenirs which they brought home for the children were ruby red mugs trimmed in gold with the date of the Exposition and the children’s initials. At least two of these mugs are still in the possession of Byrd's grandchildren.

In 1918, Byrd bought the Sively Farm which was located in the Indian Valley area. In 1928, when the Industrial Rayon plant came to Covington, he sold them the land where the Rayon Dam is located.

Occupation - [place: Entrepreneur]

Burial - [date: 26 FEB 1938] [place: Humphries Cemetery, Rich Patch, VA]

The railroad track built for the IRC plant was a spur track and bridge that came off of a track built in the early 1900s to Paint Bank, Virginia, called the Potts Creek branch line. Iron ore from Paint Bank was smelted in the Sunnymead Covington area of Covington. Beehive ovens located beneath the tracks behind the old Kroger store were used for processing the ore by the Lowmoor Iron company.

Norvel Welch owned the small coal loading operation west of Rayon Drive beside the railroad tracks and visible in plant photos.

Electrical power for the Covington IRC plant was produced in the powerhouse with coal-fired steam boilers that fed steam turbine electric generators. Electrical service from VEPCO was installed for the nylon plant in 1954. The VEPCO service was very susceptible to power blips (that would shut down the spinning equipment) from storms, while the rayon plant service from the powerhouse was very reliable.

IRC established a landfill operation just west of the powerhouse. Material placed into this landfill was burned continuously. After Hercules purchased the site in 1961, they moved the landfill operation toward the southwest and instead of burning, they dug trenches ahead of current fill and then used material from the trenches to cover fill behind. Material placed in the Hercules landfill included waste film, waste fiber, and office waste. The State Water Control Board required that test wells be dug around these landfills and that testing be performed for thirty years. No problems were noted with these test results. During the period these landfill operations were underway, the City of Covington was landfilling their waste in the area of the old Aides store across Marion street from the old Kroger store in Covington. After the City of Covington opened the landfill on Hot Springs mountain (in the late 1960s?), Hercules stopped using the on-site landfill (except for continuing to landfill coated bales in the area still owned by Hercules, Inc.).

The process for producing rayon began with receipt of wood pulp made by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. The pulp used for rayon production came from red spruce trees, which the paper mill obtained from Cass, WVa. Availability of this key raw material was one of the reasons for Covington being chosen as the site for the Rayon plant. However, the paper mill later switched to hardwoods and IRC had to source spruce based pulp from Washington state. Material shipped to the Covington plant by rail included coal, pulp (in the form of sheets), sulfuric acid, and caustic soda. Casey Jones’ father was responsible for raw material receipt and handling by rail. Charlie did not work directly with viscose production. However, the viscose operation flow diagram (from pulp receipt to the viscose storage tanks) in the 1943 Industrial Rayon book appeared to accurately depict the Covington operation, as he understood it.

After the viscose was produced, it was pumped into cooling/aging tanks located in the large basement area beneath the spinning area, which was in the south east section of the IRC building. Cooling/aging time was about 40 hours and used natural cooling from the basement area. The purpose of this process was to get the viscosity of the viscose material to the correct level so it would run properly in the spinning operation.

When the viscose was ready, it was pumped upstairs into the spin heads, small units with hundreds of tiny holes from which the viscose material flowed into a sulfuric acid bath where it precipitated to form many solid strands of rayon yarn. At this point, operators grasped the material, pulled it out of the acid bath, and wrapped it around rolls and to a winder shaft. An acid recovery area was located just west of the spinning area and it included a large chimney to eliminate fumes from the process. From the spinning operation, rolls of acidic spun yarn went to a neutralizing bath of caustic material, then to a wash tank. After drying, it was ready for processing. Early in the plant operation, spinning operators experienced eye irritation problems because there were no ventilation hoods for the acid bath. Later, a ventilation system was installed along with a third large chimney to remove the acid fumes.

Processing the spun rayon yarn was accomplished in the large (300’ X 300’) room in the center of the IRC building just north of the spinning area. Process included dying, knitting, where rolls of knitted material were produced, coning where small rolls of yarn were produced, and beaming, where large (10 to 12 ft long by 50” diameter) rolls were produced. The knitting area was located where the lab is today. Shipping was in the two northern most 9,000 sq ft rooms and the dye operation was in the south west 9000 sq ft room with the basement underneath.

Rayon produced at the Covington IRC plant was used for ladies garments. It had a very good “hand” or soft feel. Rayon was not suitable carpets because of poor durability. For instance, a rayon carpet Charlie had installed at home showed serious wear after one year of use. No rayon for tire cord use was produced in Covington.

Rayon sales dropped as it was pushed out by competitive nylon and polyester materials. In 1954 Industrial Rayon purchased and installed a nylon plant where the Hercules spin tower and staple lines were located, just east of and across the road from the Rayon plant. Three extrusion lines and stuffing box style bulking units were set up to produce a Nylon bulk continuous filament (BCF) product. The nylon plant was purchased as a package deal from the Hans J. Zimmer Company. The plant was rated at an annual capacity of 12 million pounds of 15 denier No. 6 nylon. The nylon raw material supplied by Allied Chemical in Hopewell, VA, was received in thermally insulated tank cars and was unloaded as a melt material. During this period, Charlie Deacon was Spinning Department Head.

In addition to Nylon production, IRC began work in the late 1950’s on producing fiber from polypropylene resin. The “High Polymers” division of IRC initially located in Cleveland, did development work on polypropylene melt spinning technology. The Cleveland Engineering Shops fabricated the first twelve spin beams for Covington fibers extruders numbered 1 through 12 for polypropylene fiber production. Eventually the High Polymers division in Cleveland was closed and the Fibers Processing Lab was set up in the Pilot Plant in Covington.

The development work that IRC had done with fiber production from polypropylene resin appealed to Hercules Powder Company executives who needed an outlet for PP resin capacity coming on stream. Desmond Ferrell, plant manager for the last year of IRC operations, was largely responsible for steering the Covington Plant in the path of the Hercules purchase. On one occasion, Elmer Hiner, a Hercules VP, visited Covington with other executives who would go back and make a recommendation to the board of directors. The staple line when set up for polypropylene production had been breaking out very frequently, with no more than ten minutes of continuous operation. In preparation for the tour, Ferrell had the areas cleaned up, had all operators leave the area, except one, and had the staple line set up but immediately shut it down to await the tour group. Just before the group turned to corner the staple production line was started up. It ran through a five minute display; then as the group left the area, true to form the line broke out. The group went back to Wilmington and their recommendation to purchase the Covington plant was accepted by the Board of Directors. Ferrell was hired as plant manger for Hercules after the sale. A tough six months ensued as problems with the staple line were solved, but success did occur. Maynard Kessinger worked tirelessly and effectively in the spinning area to improve the quality of the yarn that was then consumed by the finally successful staple operation.

In 1960, _______________ related to the Covington management group in a 1960 dinner meeting that IRC didn’t have the sales or the cash to continue rayon production operations. In 1961 IRC sold the Covington plant to Hercules and in the same year, the Cleveland plant was shutdown. Operations were consolidated to the Painsville, Ohio plant where equipment was outfitted for polyester production for Tyrex tire cord. The nylon producing equipment was sold to Firestone Incorporated in Hopewell, Va.

Finally, the FPL group was moved to the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.

August 21, 2008