E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). The du Pont’s purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine River just North of Wilmington, Delaware. During wartime the company was a major supplier for the United States government. During peacetime, the company marketed their product towards sportsmen and hunters.

In 1902 the DuPont Company acquired the Smith Electric Fuze Company and some other properties in the Pompton Lakes, New Jersey area. DuPont continued the manufacture of fuses, blasting caps, and other blasting supplies at the plant, adding a shell plant and other facilities. By the end of World War I, some 7,500 people worked at the site. The works diminished in size in the 1920s, concentrating on the manufacturing of commercial blasting supplies.

John A. Dick (1879-1972), the first full-time photographer hired by the DuPont Company, documented the growth of the plant during World War I in these photographs.