Remembering the Keystone Glue Factory

In the west end of Williamsport on Trenton Avenue lies the factory complex occupied by the chemical plant Lonza. This has been a factory complex for 100 years. It began life in 1907 as the Keystone Glue Company.
Ground was broken for the Keystone Glue Factory on May 23, 1907. The initial, five-building complex was completed for operations by the spring of 1908. There were storage buildings, drying buildings and a boiler building with six boilers. The coal needed to operate these boilers made Keystone Glue one of the leading consumers of coal in the Williamsport for a time.
To help facilitate the transport of workers, the local trolley company had trolley tracks laid almost to the entrance of the plant and the Pennsylvania Railroad ran a switch to the glue works.
A March 1933 “Grit” article describe operations at Keystone Glue saying that its chimneys churned out smoke for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It said that the manufacturing of glue was a continuous process at the plant. At the time of the “Grit” article there 90 men working at the plant and it reported that more than 4 million pounds of hide glue was produced there. The byproducts of this manufacturing process included Number One and Number Two fleshing grease, which was used extensively by the silk manufacturing and fertilizing industry. Green hide fleshing consisted of calf and cattle hides in the tanning process and produced the glue.
A new stock room was built in 1932 that was 75 feet long and 240 inches in width. It had a battery of 18 rectangular milk-of-lime vats and 12 cylindrical waste vats. The hides were cooked and rendered the glue. It was dried in an 80-foot tunnel beneath the plant used as a drying room. Sulfuric acid was used to produce a weak acid to neutralize the lime that had been produced.
In 1933, Keystone Glue Company was a subsidiary of the United States Leather Company, at the time one of the largest leather producers in the world. The glue produced at Keystone was used all over the United States -- as an adhesive in the metal trade, the making of sandpaper, emery cloths wall coverings, polishing wheels, as well in the manufacture of straw hats, glaze for playing cards, the back of carpet rolls and rugs, as well as glue for furniture and chipping glass.
Keystone’s fortunes declined by the end of World II and in 1950 the Keystone plant closed.
In 1952, Glyco Chemical Co. acquired the factory and its facilities and made extensive renovations to the facility. Glyco produced materials such as emulsifiers, and numerous other chemical compounds used in a variety of products. The name Glyco came from “glycols,” one of the types of chemicals produced by the company.
In January 1986, Glyco became a fully operating subsidiary of Lonza, a Swiss chemical company. Lonza also expanded and renovated facilities at the plant.
Lonza’s Williamsport plant produces four main product lines:
Hydantoins: water purifiers for pools, spas and house and industrial applications, as well as preservatives for cosmetics (soft soaps, hand creams and facial cosmetics).
Fatty Esters: used as food additives, either Kosher or non-Kosher, in bread and ice cream to ensure consistent texture and freshness; lubricants for textiles; additives in the manufacture of plastic food containers.
Acrawax®: the leading plastic lubricant for decades, used to enhance the quality, durability and appearance of plastic products such as home siding, appliance housings and automobile components.
Surfactants: provides the cleaning power in baby shampoos and detergents.
In 100 years, the Lonza factory complex has gone from an industry rooted in the past, manufacturing glue by using animal hides to a cutting-edge industry that looks to the future.