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Overview

The DuPont Fibersilk Company opened in Buffalo, New York, in 1921 as DuPont's first plant to produce the silk-like fiber that would soon be known as rayon. DuPont's new executives saw rayon as a potentially profitable opportunity to diversify the company's products beyond explosives while remaining within the general knowledge area of cellulose chemistry. DuPont's initial effort had been to buy into future rival American Viscose Company. But when this attempt was refused, the company struck a successful deal in 1919 with the French firm Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels, paying $4 million in return for a 60 percent interest in a new company, DuPont Fibersilk, that was established on April 16, 1920. Under the leadership of Leonard A. Yerkes, DuPont Fibersilk built a plant on 90 acres near Buffalo, New York, and began production of the new continuous filament viscose fiber in 1921. The fiber was named rayon in 1924.

DuPont opened a Rayon Technical Division Research Lab on the site in 1924 and invested in rayon-related research. The 1920s proved to be boom years for the rayon industry, with both women's and men's fashions taking advantage of rayon's silk-like properties at significant savings from the cost of silk. DuPont and other rayon producers such as American Viscose made up to a 33 percent return on their investment. During this period DuPont built additional rayon plants at Old Hickory, Tennessee, and in Richmond, Virginia. DuPont Fibersilk was renamed The DuPont Rayon Company in 1925, and the Buffalo plant was demolished to make room for a larger facility in 1931. The entire complex at Buffalo, including the rayon plant and a cellophane plant, was renamed the Yerkes Works to honor the first director at his retirement in 1945.

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