Norristown Covering Company and later owners plant at Norristown, Pennsylvania

In December 1929, Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, traced this plant back to "about 1896," when the Norristown Covering Company was organized in Norristown, Pennsylvania, "for the purpose of manufacturing insulation materials (pipe covering)," with its plant at Airy and Barbadoes Streets.³ The same article said the company later "acquired a tract of ground along the Schuylkill River in Norristown," which gave it water and room to grow, and that "the plant occupies the same site today."³ A 1954 article in the journal, dating the change to 1906, said the company acquired asbestos paper and millboard machines and "began to specialize in the manufacture of high quality Paper, Millboard and Pipe Insulations."¹

By 1925 the business was the Norristown Magnesia & Asbestos Company: that December Asbestos reported that its liquidation plan was complete, the stockholders' interests having been bought by Victor Mauck and Frank Sutcliffe of the John Wood Manufacturing Company of Conshohocken.² The same report listed what the plant was then selling: "Asbestos Air Cell Coverings and Boards, Wool Felt Coverings, Asbestos Cements, Asbestos Paper and Millboard, and 2-Point Covering."²

In December 1926 the journal reported that on the morning of December 6th "fire broke out in the storage sheds" of the company at Norristown.⁴ In 1954 Asbestos called Norristown "presently the largest manufacturer of Asbestos Felt in any individual plant."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 “plant at Airy and Barbadoes Streets”, “tract of ground along the Schuylkill River in Norristown”, “plant of the Norristown Magnesia & Asbestos Company, Norristown, Pa.”.

See also

• Asbestos exposure sites in Pennsylvania

References

1. Asbestos Magazine, 1954, May 1954 (May 1, 1954), p. 16.
2. Asbestos Magazine, 1925, December 1925 (December 1, 1925), pp. 42–43.
3. Asbestos Magazine, 1929, December 1929 (December 1, 1929), p. 14.
4. Asbestos Magazine, 1926, December 1926 (December 1, 1926), p. 47.