'Elastomer' is a portmanteau of elastic polymer, a term encompassing a wide variety of synthetic and natural rubbers used for everything from sealing to adhesives to flexible parts. Cries for affordable synthetic elastomers grew to new heights after World War I, when natural rubber’s limitations in quantity, accessibility, and quality had become abundantly clear even as demand increased with the growth of the automobile industry. In 1930-31, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company chemists, led by Elmer K. Bolton (1886-1968)first developed an artificial rubber. A crucial breakthrough came when Dr. Arnold M. Collins (1899-1982) isolated chlorophene and 2-chloro-1, 3-butadiene in 1930. DuPont began the manufacture of its first artificial rubber, trademarked “DuPrene,” in September 1931. On December 11, 1936, it was renamed “neoprene,” a term to be used generically. Neoprene and other artificial rubbers were successively produced by the Organic Chemicals Department, the Elastomer Chemicals Department, and the Polymer Products Department, which was restyled DuPont Polymers in 1990. In 1994, DuPont and the Dow Chemical Company combined their operations in a 50/50 joint venture, DuPont Dow Elastomers, L.L.C. The partnership was dissolved subsequent to 2001, and as of 2016, Neoprene is produced by DuPont Performance Elastomers, L.L.C., and its international affiliates.

With the start of World War II, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company built a plant for manufacturing neoprene in Louisville, breaking ground in 1941. In 1942, the U.S. government purchased the plant for the war effort while leaving DuPont in charge; the Axis powers controlled almost all of the world’s natural rubber supply. The Louisville Works was resold to DuPont in 1948. In 1953, the plant celebrated the one billionth pound of neoprene produced. The DuPont neoprene plant at midcentury encompassed nearly 136 acres on the Ohio River, plus extensive well fields. The plant became the heart of what is today known as “Rubbertown,” an industrial district in Louisville. Over the course of the late fifties, DuPont expanded the plant’s operations by adding a Freon-22 manufacturing block (1955) and a vinyl fluoride manufacturing block.

Beginning in the 1960s, there have been tensions between the municipality and the corporations who operate in Rubbertown over environmental and safety issues. On August 26, 1965, there was a notable explosion at the DuPont plant; 12 dead and 37 casualties made it the worst industrial accident in Louisville’s history. In 1969, yet another explosion injured six more workers. Freon manufacture was phased out by 1992 in an effort to stop chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) production, due to concerns about its deleterious effect on the ozone layer. In 1998, after the acquisition of Protein Technologies international, the Louisville Plant also began the manufacture of concentrated soy protein for industrial use. In 2008, DuPont Performance Elastomers shut down their Louisville Plant and concentrated production at a sister plant in Louisiana.