Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. / Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation plant at Bloomington, Illinois

In December 1950, Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, reported that the Union Asbestos & Rubber Company of Chicago, known as UNARCO, "has leased the former locomotive shop of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad in Bloomington, Ill."¹ The building, the journal said, was being reconditioned to run as part of UNARCO's Fibrous Products Division, with equipment "to manufacture asbestos insulations and other fibrous specialties for industrial use."¹ A 1971 look back in the same journal described it differently, as "a large plant at Bloomington, Illinois," that "was acquired in 1950 and equipped to manufacture a variety of fibrous products," adding that "in 1951 Bloomington became the headquarters for asbestos textile operations."³ The plant later belonged to Owens-Corning Fiberglas, which said in sworn answers in a 1997 lawsuit that it bought it from the Chembest Division of Unarco in April 1970 and sold it in 1982.²

Under Union Asbestos & Rubber

In October 1954 the company announced in Asbestos "the consolidation of a major portion of the company's fibrous products manufacturing activities" at Bloomington, and said new machinery "recently installed at Bloomington" had increased its productive capacity.⁴ A Navy list of qualified products in 1954 gives 1111 West Perry Street, Bloomington, as one of two plants for UNARCO's Unibestos insulation, the other being Paterson, New Jersey.⁵ A June 1962 agreement of purchase between Union Asbestos & Rubber and Pittsburgh Corning Corporation defines the "Bloomington plant" as "UNION's plant at or near Bloomington, Illinois, where UNION has certain facilities for the manufacture of the H-T product," meaning "Unibestos" pipe and block insulation; the agreement describes it as "manufactured from amosite asbestos fiber."⁶ In its sworn answers in a 1970 lawsuit, Unarco said Unibestos was "discontinued in 1963," when the entire product line passed to Pittsburgh Corning Corporation; that describes the product, not the Bloomington plant in particular.⁷

Under Owens-Corning

Owens-Corning's 1997 answers say it "began to manufacture and distribute asbestos-containing Unarcoboard (Fyrcor) insulation at the time that it acquired the Bloomington plant."² Fyrcor was made at the plant at 1111 West Perry Street "from April 1970 until November 1972, when OC ceased the production of Fyrcor."² In late August 1970, the same answers say, the company "required operators of the Asbestos Fiber Feeder, Slurry Mixer and Unarcoboard Press in the Bloomington plant to wear respirators while those pieces of equipment were running."² They also name the plant's contract doctors: Doctor George B. McNeely from April 1970 to July 1977, Doctor N. Lee Still from July 1977 to July 1978, and Doctor James A. Bilyeau from July 1978 "until 1982, when the plant was sold."²

Location

Pictures of products made here

Labels, packages, photographs and catalog pages from our library of products documents say were made at this plant. Each picture has its own page and library number.

• Product photograph: UNIBESTOS PIPE INSULATION (UNARCO)Unibestos (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.)Product photograph · ACL Doc 15189

Asbestos products made here

The products documents say were made at this plant, with the years a document gives for the product here. Each product's page has what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Unibestos (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.)^5,6

What each document says

Every statement about this plant in the documents, in each document's own words.

Other names

Documents call this plant “1111 West Perry St. Bloomington, Ill.”, “Bloomington plant”, “Bloomington, Illinois”.

See also

• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.: the company's history, documents, people, products and plants
• Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation: the company's history, documents, people, products and plants
• Asbestos exposure sites in Illinois

References

1. Asbestos Magazine, 1950, December 1950 (December 1, 1950), p. 44.
2. Owens Corning's Responses to Plaintiffs' Master Interrogatories in Greco v. A-Best Products (September 13, 1997), pp. 6, 27, 50, 78.
3. Asbestos Magazine, 1971, September 1971 (September 1, 1971), p. 8.
4. Asbestos Magazine, 1954, October 1954 (October 1, 1954), p. 48.
5. Military Qualified Products List (1951–1995) (March 15, 1954), p. 12.
6. The Tomplait v. Combustion Engineering Case File (1962-1969), Answers to plaintiff's third interrogatories with exhibits (June 30, 1962), p. 4.
7. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File (1969-1972), Answers to interrogatories (April 1, 1970), p. 1.