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In 1960, a large sign advertised that the former Sylvania plant was for sale.
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HUNTINGTON --
With the outbreak of World War II, American industry rolled up its sleeves and
went to work.
Virtually overnight, plants switched from making automobiles and
other civilian goods to turning out guns and tanks and airplanes.
New plants
were built including a super-secret facility built by the U.S. Navy on a
9.8-acre site
at Madison Avenue and 7th St. West. The Navy spent $1.5 million to
build the 140,000-
square-foot plant and another $1.5 million to equip it for
the production of miniature
electronic tubes which were used in the proximity
fuses of artillery and antiaircraft shells.
The Navy
leased the plant to Sylvania Electric Products Inc., which operated it. At
its
peak, the plant employed 3,700 workers, mostly women, on three shifts. At
war's
end, production was sharply curtailed and most of the workforce laid off.
By the
time the plant closed in 1957, only 350 workers were still on the job.
Efforts by
city officials and the Huntington Chamber of Commerce to convince Sylvania to
convert the
plant to civilian production or to lure another company to take over
the closed plant were unsuccessful.
The federal
government put the building up for sale, and in 1961 the Chesapeake & Ohio
Railway Co.
bought it to house a new data processing center. The railroad would
utilize the building until the mid 1980s.
Today, the
building is occupied by the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
The
Division of Motor Vehicles has its local office in the front section of the
building on Madison Avenue, and the Division of Highways
utilizes the rest of
the sprawling structure.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Jan. 19 , 2015
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