Overview

When it opened in 1890, the Mooar Mills near Keokuk, Iowa, was the world’s largest powder plant and the first DuPont plant west of the Mississippi. The decision to build the plant, one of the last by aging patriarch “General” Henry du Pont, was partly an expression of his faith in traditional blasting powder which was even then being challenged by the new explosive, dynamite. But the facility was also intended to meet the needs of the nation’s rapidly expanding western market, particularly the coal fields of the Midwest.

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