Introduction

Introduction. Bethlehem Loading Country History Trail. , The Bethlehem Loading Company, Mays Landing Plant, was built in 1918 to load three sizes of ordnance shells for use by troops overseas during World War I. The facility originally contained 199 buildings erected in less than seven months on an 18,000-acre site at a cost of $12 million. Belcoville (short for Bethlehem Loading Co.), a newly constructed town for the factory workers, was located two miles to the north. The plant was one of fourteen shell-loading plants nationwide and was one of six shell-loading plants located in New Jersey. At the height of production, over 2,000 people were employed and more than 134,000 shells loaded., The plant complex was only 70 percent complete when the war ended in November 1918. Six months later, the buildings were sold for salvage, leaving only foundations, some brick partition walls, concrete floors, and scattered structural ruins. The site is a nationally significant historic district listed in the State and National Registers of Historic Places., [Captions:] , Drawn circa 1919, this aerial view shows the entire shell-loading complex as it would have looked if all the buildings had been erected. (Images courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library), Much of the land on which the loading plant was built had to be cleared before construction could begin.