E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. The company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). The du Ponts purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine River just North of Wilmington, Delaware for the production of black powder. 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. The DuPont Company 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.

The DuPont Company also operated a dynamite plant near Hancock, Michigan. When the government broke up the DuPont Company's monopoly on powder manufacturing in 1912, the Hancock site became part of the newly formed Atlas Powder Company.