VIRGINIA-CAROLINA
FARM FERTILIZER PLANT - 1934
The Virginia-Carolina Chemical Company, whose main offices are in
Richmond, Virginia, built a new plant in Fain City next to Route 111. The site was
selected because of the city's strategic geographical location to serve the Midwest market
and the plant was built in 1932. The products are commercial fertilizers suitable for the
soil and crops grown in the Mississippi Valley. The main building is 370 feet long and 200
feet wide. It was designed to facilitate the handling of both raw and finished materials.
Raw materials are delivered by rail in carload lots at the northeast side of the building.
Here they are unloaded and transferred to storage bins from which they are carried by
means of an overhead tram system in motor-driven dump cars of a ton and one-half capacity
to the various parts of the building where the base materials for the various analyses are
stored.
From the storage piles the base is conveyed to mixing machines where other materials
are added to complete the formula by the purchaser. From the mixing machines the completed
product is carried to bagging machines, made ready for and loaded into the cars from the
southwest side of the building. The plant is capable of turning out twenty carloads of
bagged fertilizer daily.
