Welcome To Natrona's Penn Salt National Historic District

Welcome To Natrona's Penn Salt National Historic District. . , In September 1850, Philadelphians George L. Lewis and Samuel Fox Fisher, along with Charles Lennig, a German Quaker and successful chemical manufacturer, chartered and located on this site the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company. The place was chosen because of the abundance of salt and coal, the two main ingredients of soda ash, which the company hoped to produce and sell to the steamboat traffic on the Mississippi River. The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal (1829-1865), ran right past the Penn Salt site and provided a transportation linkage East and West., In 1852 Penn Salt began producing soda alkali and selling it to Cincinnati soap-makers. Soon thereafter, they marketed "Natrona Refined Saponifier," individually packaged containers of caustic soda, or lye, for home soap making. The new product sold well and made the company its first profit. It also prompted a change in the town's name in 1862, from East Tarentum to Natrona, from the Greek Natron, meaning soda. The discovery of [unreadable] practice died out well into the twentieth century. From cryolite, Penn Salt also extracted flux an electrolyte which were used successfully in the 1880s to refine aluminum., From then until the plant closed in 1959, Penn Salt produced an [unreadable] diverse line of products, including Natrona Oil-in the [unreadable] the only oil sold in London, England. Penn Salt workers also manufactured bleaching detergents, refrigerants, and numerous pesticides, including DDT and chemical defoliants used in the South Pacific during World War II. Penn Salt was vital to the U.S. war effort: in 1943, a cарtured list of American sites targeted for demolition by the Nazis found Natrona number three., The uniqueness of the Penn Salt National Historic District derives in part from its Philadelphia and Quaker origins. Natrona was a different sort of company town-paternalistic yet more benevolent than most coal-patch and steel towns of western Pennsylvania: the company paid the rent of families whose Fathers served in the Civil War, served the town with water, light and power and provided land for the early churches. Penn Salt District was architecturally distinct: the Gothic Revival style of [unreadable] on Federal Street reflect the moralizing architectural forms [unreadable] middle-class rural areas of the East. Penn Salt's Quaker [unreadable] this cottage style of housing would ameliorate the [unreadable] an industrial town and promote the good behavior [unreadable], Including the company store in front of you, the 150 structures that comprise the Historic District are part of a once-larger complex built by Penn Salt for its workers. The oldest homes on Federal Street date to the fall of 1850. The variegated but rhythmic housing of the District, the rich history it evokes, and the integrity and stability of the community make this one of the most enduring and unique industrial towns in western Pennsylvania.