Standard Ultramarine

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The Standard Ultramarine & Color Co. was originally established in Tiffin, Ohio. in 1909.
Three years later it moved to Huntington, where it rapidly grew to become one of the
city's biggest and best know ibdustries.

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HUNTINGTON -- In 1909, Omar T. Frick began manufacturing ultramarine blue pigment
in Tiffin, Ohio. A year later, Frick encouraged Henry Dourif, a young French
 chemist, to join him in the firm, called Standard Ultramarine & Color Co.

In 1912, lured by the advantages of Huntington's location, the two men moved
their young company and its 20 employees to a half-acre site on
 5th Avenue just east of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
crossing.

From that modest beginning, Standard Ultramarine, or SUCO as it was generally
 called, rapidly grew to become one of Huntington's biggest and best
 known industries. By the mid-1920s, the plant covered some
 20 acres and employed more than 500 workers. By 1948,
 SUCO offered a rainbow assortment of pigments.

Because the plant sprawled over both sides of 5th Avenue, traffic on the avenue
 sometimes had to stop while workers - many of them covered from head to toe
in blue dye - rode a small trolley that carried them across the busy roadway.

Over the years, many of the buildings shown in the accompanying photograph
have been demolished, and the plant has changed hands.

In 1964, SUCO was sold to Chemetron Corp. and combined with Holland Color & Chemical
 to form Holland-SUCO Color Co., a name that was used until 1969 when it was changed to the
Pigments Division of Chemetron. In 1979, Chemetron sold the plant to BASF Wyandotte.

Today, the century-old plant is owned and operated by Flint Group Pigments,
a worldwide supplier to the printing and packaging industry.

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Note:  This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on June 5, 2017.

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