The Master of the Chemical Machine

Abstract

Model’s City’s demise did little to slow industrial growth in Niagara Falls. During the early 1900s, the region’s economy expanded at a tremendous rate. Niagara’s next big thing came in the form of chemicals. When William Love departed the area, the Falls claimed no major chemical maker. By the 1920s, Niagara Falls was home to a dynamic and thriving chemical sector that produced huge amounts of industrial-grade chemicals via hydroelectric power. By World War II, dozens of companies called Niagara Falls home, making it a global leader in the production of chlorines, degreasers, explosives, pesticides, plastics, and myriad other chemical agents. The chief architect of Niagara’s chemical expansion was Elon Huntington Hooker, an engineer turned industrial titan who settled in the Falls soon after William Love left. [ Fig. 6 ] Hailing from famous families, Hooker was destined for great things. On one side, Hooker could trace a lineage back to Puritan divines who had literally built cities on a hill; on the other, there were railroad titans who had traversed the American West. In both cases, Elon Hooker’s family background inspired him to think big. The guiding spirit of a brash new chemical company that bore his surname, Hooker harnessed Niagara’s power to become the nation’s leading producer of two key chemicals: chloride of lime (bleaching powder) and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda). Over the next fifty years, Hooker Chemical became a mainstay of American industry. Its products helped win wars, explore space, and fuel American consumerism. These developments would not surprise Elon Huntington Hooker. Indeed, he thought of himself as an American Adam: a technological originator who reshaped nature and society in equal measure. His vision of chemical superiority would come to fruition a few miles from Love’s abandoned canal—at first glance, perhaps nothing more than a coincidence of history. But Hooker’s success would soon collide with Love’s failure at the big ditch in Lasalle, once again illuminating the Love Canal landscape’s importance to the American environmental past—and future.