Announced in December 1938, and opened on November 1, 1939 (production would begin December 12, 1939), the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company opened its Seaford, DE plant to produce Nylon. This was after Dr. Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937) first produced Nylon at the DuPont Experimental Station (in Wilmington, DE) in 1935.
The plant would focus production of nylon for parachutes and B-29 bomber tires during World War II, but after the war, the plant's production changed to DuPont's textile fiber program. DuPont's “Fiber X”, would be produced here in 1948 (later to be introduced as Dacron). In the mid-1980s, DuPont began downsizing at the plant and by 2003, sold its synthetic fiber division (now known as Invista), to Koch Industries, Inc. Invista still owns the plant, but rail service has been non-existent since 2003.
