West Coast Asbestos Company / E. M. Smith Company plant at Downey, California

The West Coast Asbestos Company built its plant at Downey, California.³ In December 1920, Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, reported that "the erection of the new plant of the West Coast Asbestos Company at Downey, Calif., is progressing rapidly," with a first unit "to cost about $250,000" measuring "100 by 400 feet."³ The journal added that the plant "will be opened with about 100 employes," and that the company expected "from 500 to 600 people" on its payroll once all the units were running.³

In March 1922, Asbestos reported that E. M. Smith, of E. M. Smith Company of Los Angeles, had bought "from the United States Asbestos Company its interest in the West Coast Asbestos Company."² The same item called it "the only Asbestos plant on the Pacific Coast," said it had "been operating for about ten months," and gave its production as "100,000 pounds a month" of "a complete line of Brake Lining and Textiles."²

In August 1922, the company's own notice in Asbestos said it was "owned by the E. M. Smith Company, of Los Angeles."¹ The notice listed what Downey made: "yarns, cloth, wick and rope, woven and folded and stitched brake linings, clutch facings, valve stem packing, high pressure spiral packings and asbestos gaskets."¹

Location

What each document says

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

Other names

Documents call this plant “new plant of the West Coast Asbestos Company at Downey, Calif.”, “West Coast Asbestos Co. Downey, California”.

See also

• Asbestos exposure sites in California

References

1. Asbestos Magazine, 1922, August 1922 (August 1, 1922), p. 41.
2. Asbestos Magazine, 1922, March 1922 (March 1, 1922), p. 59.
3. Asbestos Magazine, 1920, December 1920 (December 1, 1920), p. 60.