Baton Rouge Industry

Every city manufactures something. Tin cans, airplane parts, puffed wheat; for every city in America there is a corresponding mass-produced item known to come from factories within its borders. It would be a strange city indeed that had no PCB designers, industrial magnates, or large quantities of a harvestable resource ripe for the picking. Baton Rouge is no exception. For the duration of this article, we will explore the history of manufacturing in Baton Rouge and the role of industry in Baton Rouge's economy in the present day.

While some cities have only a modicum of industry, perhaps producing America's thirty-fifth largest supply of fabricated strainers for export to the Isle of Wright, Baton Rouge is a major industrial player. Its factories, petrochemical refineries and port help elevate it to the status of one of the biggest cities for industry in the American South. The hurricane Katrina disaster has made Baton Rouge an even bigger player in recent years, because the destruction of New Orleans' infrastructure has given Baton Rouge a bigger share in the market. Though New Orleans has recovered somewhat from its ordeal, it's unlikely that it will ever return to its former glory.

It was in the first half of the nineteenth century that industry really began to grow in Baton Rouge. In those days, steamboats and railways were the technological height of transportation and the means of feeding Baton Rouge factories. Though the American Civil War slowed development by siphoning the top metal slitters, coal shovelers, and industrial workers away into the army, the end of the war and the beginning of the reconstruction period offered opportunities to Baton Rouge industrialists. Its strategic location along the Mississippi River made it the ideal location for refineries, particularly of petroleum, natural gas, and salt.

It was the construction of the Standard Oil refinery in 1909 that really kicked things off for Baton Rouge. Soon there was a huge demand for everything from large bore pipes to crimp terminals as other companies rushed to get in on the action. Industry expanded further during the World Wars as Baton Rouge factories were put to use making fuel for tanks, trucks, and planes as well as armaments and other necessary items. These industrial booms translated into population booms for the city as new workers moved in from all over to take advantage of new job opportunities.

While the industrial recession in the late 1980s has taught Baton Rouge to expand its economic base into such things as medical research, film, and online ventures in cheap postcard printing, petrochemicals are still the city's biggest industry. The ExxonMobil plant is the second largest in the country and one of the top ten in the world. Dow produces chemicals in its Iberville plant, while NanYa Plastics turns out PVC piping in the north part of the city. All these factories have given birth to a large construction industry in Baton Rouge as well. Building contractors such as Shaw and Turner have built their reputations by erecting Baton Rouge factories.