Coryville
Wood Chemical Plant
photo credit:
John G. Coleman Collection
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Crosby Wood Chemical Plant
to Keystone
Wood Chemical Plant
to
East Smethport Wood Chemical Plant
The Good 'Ol Days from Frank Shick: Wood Chemical
Plant
Interview by Melissa Hall
Frank's father and his brother both worked at the Wood
Chemical Plant for a long time. Mr. Bartley was foreman of the Chemical Works.
He had Grace, who married a (George) Dean around Smethport, and Hazel, who lived
in Jamestown, for daughters and a son named Nevin. Frank remembers his father
coming home from work at the Plant and he would be covered in black...which would
be the coal that was produced at the Wood Chemical Plant. The Plant also made
alcohol and acetate to sell. Wood would be cut and brought up in large wagons
pulled by horses to be burned. After the wood burned for a while, water would
then be sprayed on it to smolder the fire, therefore making the charcoal. Frank
remembered a lot of tar being distibuted in the Plant. He also remembered a horse
getting stuck in the tar, but it was saved. Later on, the Coryville Wood Chemical
Plant became known as Coryville Wood Products.
