Site Map || Links

The Hiring Process

Getting Paid in 1918

 

 

 

 

 

"On March 10, 1918," wrote historian Dixon Merritt, "Hadley's Bend was a little neighborhood of half a score of farms-- a sedate, slow-moving, old fashioned and somewhat aristocratic cluster of country families.  On November 11 of that year, the day the World War Armistice was signed, the area was capable of housing and caring for a population of 100,000.  A plant, city, railroad, highways and streets, water system, what not - - all had been constructed in eight months and a day."

At the root of it all was the plant - - a smokeless powder factory that in its few months of operation was the largest of its kind in the world.

Hadley's Bend was changed almost overnight when the U.S. Government bought 5,600 acres, at an average price of $105 per acre, to build the plant.  The Government needed smokeless powder - - lots of it - -for the armies on the Western Front, and in January 1918 DuPont contracted with the Government to build and run the plant in the Bend.

The new railroad brought in thousands of workers to build the facility.  One train was reserved exclusively for women and was called the "Powder Puff Special."  The "DuPont Powder Puff," in fact, was the name of a popular song at the plant::

"We're in the War, right in the game,

We're fighting with our men,

We back the chaps who're at the front,

From dear old Nashville, Tenn,

Old Hickory plant is working nights,

To make the real stuff

To paste upon the Kaiser's nose

a DuPont Powder Puff."

At the height of the construction, it was estimated that 300 carloads of material came into Old Hickory (or Jacksonville, as it was known at this time) each day and there were as many as 30,000 employees on roll.  The plant, though nowhere near complete, was producing 700,000 pounds of smokeless powder per day when the Armistice was signed.

Of course, when the war ended the powder was no longer needed and the plant closed.  DuPont left Old Hickory, selling the property to the Nashville Industrial Corp., a group of Nashville businessmen.

With no reason to stay, the people moved out of the Bend.  As quickly as it had appeared, the community was transformed into a "ghost town". 

Return to Top

Taken from, "Our Old Hickory Heritage", a DuPont publication.

 

 

 

 

If you have questions or comments, please contact us by e-mail.
Copyright © 2003 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. All rights reserved.        DuPont Privacy Statement