Overview

In 1910 DuPont purchased a Chilean mine and formed the DuPont Nitrate Company, which supplied nitric acid for the manufacture of smokeless powder. Expansion of the nitrate mining industry created a need for more and better explosives. In the early 1920s, DuPont joined with several other firms to form the Compania Sud-Americana de Explosivos at Rio Loa. DuPont maintained a 42 percent stake and built the company’s dynamite plant. In 1923 DuPont built South America’s first dynamite plant at Rio Loa, Chile.

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