Nitro, West Virginia

Episode 87 / 26 September 2018 / 152 min / full

A Bloody Mess

"James says they are going to Nitro, West Virginia, about 20 minutes outside Charleston, half in Kanawha County and half in Putnam County, zip code 25143." about 0:05:55

The case: Murder of Francis K. Voils (November 19, 1966). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2018

Population

6,763, down 1% since 1990

Median age

44 years

Median household income

about forty-five thousand dollars

Two-bedroom rent

about $750

Cost of living

about 80

Religious

37%

Property crime

▲ about 10 to 15% above average

Violent crime

▼ less than half the national average

History, in brief

• Nitro lies along the Kanawha River. about 0:09:00
• Shortly after the US entered World War I, around 1914 to 1915 as James puts it, America had a shortage of gunpowder production. about 0:09:09
• Congress held an emergency session and passed the Deficiency Appropriations Act in 1917, providing for three huge explosives plants capable of producing 500,000 pounds of gunpowder per day. about 0:10:04
• The War Department sent engineers into a ten-state area to find sites, looking for security from coastal attack, climate, rail and water transport and raw materials; one site was Charleston, West Virginia, and three months later Nitro was chosen. Plants planned for Nashville and Louisville were not built. about 0:10:41
• Instead the Charleston and Nitro plants had production raised to 700,000 pounds per day each. about 0:11:36
• The name Nitro came from nitrocellulose, the type of gunpowder to be produced, chosen from the ordnance department; the other contender was Redwap, which is powder spelled backwards. about 0:12:18
• Workers came from every state in the Union and forty-one nationalities; the plant was built in eleven months, turning 772 acres of pastures and cornfields into a munitions plant. about 0:14:03
• By the end of the war in 1918 the complex, known as Explosive Plant C, was producing 350 tons of smokeless gunpowder per day; the town was 90% complete with about 24,000 people, with houses, utilities, schools, police, fire and a hospital. about 0:14:37
• Within two weeks of the war ending, 12,000 people left town, half the population. about 0:15:41
• Production halted and the Hercules Powder Company was ordered to put the plant in mothballs; the director of Explosive Plant C turned the operation over to the ordnance department and the government declared the reservation surplus and began disposing of the property. about 0:16:22
• The town is known as a living memorial to World War I. about 0:17:42
• The area is known as Chemical Valley and at its peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the world's leading producer of chemicals. about 0:19:35
• A 12-acre site, the former World War I chemical munitions plant, was placed on the EPA's national priorities list in 1983. about 0:20:54
• The town is known for a distinctive chemical smell, especially around the I-64 bridge, reduced by a shift away from manufacturing over the last 20 to 30 years. about 0:21:19
• In February 2012 Monsanto agreed to settle a case over dioxin contamination around its Nitro plant that made Agent Orange, agreeing to pay up to nine million dollars for clean-up of affected homes and eighty-four million dollars for medical monitoring and the community's legal fees. about 0:21:51
• According to the town's Wikipedia page, in 2001 Clonaid operated a lab in Nitro tied to the Raelians, in a rented room in the former high school; James doubts it is true. about 0:22:56
• Major league baseball player Lou Bordet was born in Nitro in 1926; country singer Kathy Mattea went to Nitro High; Clark Gable and a future Hall of Fame baseball player worked at Explosive Plant C in 1918. about 0:23:50
• The town motto is 'A historic past, an exciting future'; zip code 25143, area codes 304 and 681, 4.67 square miles. about 0:07:55
• Each May Nitro holds an annual All Horse Parade that honours women and horses who have served in the US military. about 0:31:02

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