E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company’s Pontchartrain Works began production in La Place, Louisiana, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, where the company initially produced adiponitrile, an organic compound used in the production of polyamide 6-6, a raw material for the plastics industry. DuPont first commercialized the production of adiponitrile in the late 1930s, the process being the basis for numerous plants opened in the 1940s and 1950s. The process initially used adipic acid, but DuPont later abandoned that method in favor of a process based on butadiene, an industrial chemical used as a monomer in the production of synthetic rubber. Nevertheless, adiponitrile production at the Pontchartrain Works was reduced when DuPont constructed a neoprene plant there in 1968-69.

Neoprene, developed by DuPont in 1930-31, was the only general-purpose synthetic rubber in commercial manufacture by the start of the Second World War. Production of neoprene and other synthetic rubbers was delegated to the Elastomer Chemicals Department, which also manufactured numerous organic compounds essential to neoprene production such as chlorobutadiene and monovinylacetylene. Mass production of neoprene followed. In 1941, the company broke ground on a plant for manufacturing the product in Louisville, Kentucky, which by 1967 employed over 2,000. In 1942, the U.S. Government purchased the plant, though DuPont remained in control of general operations until repurchasing the facility in 1948. By the late 1950s, the company expanded production at the Louisville Works to include Freon and aerosol propellants.

In addition to the Louisville and Pontchartrain plants, DuPont opened yet another facility for neoprene production at Montague, Michigan, in 1956. Along with neoprene, the plant produced various polymers by emulsion polymerization, including chloroprene and latex. However, these operations were terminated in 1972. In 1965, the Montague Works began the manufacture of Freon, propellants, and solvents. In 1960, DuPont expanded its neoprene production internationally with the opening of the Maydown Works in Northern Ireland, the company’s first European plant. DuPont later diversified the Maydown Plant’s product when it began manufacturing Orlon acrylic fibers in 1968, Lycra in 1969, and eventually Hypalon, a synthetic rubber made from chlorinated and sulfonated polyethylene.

The Louisville, Pontchartrain, Montague, and Maydown Works were DuPont’s primary facilities for the production of neoprene throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. However, in the past twenty years, the company has faced pressure to shed divisions in order to focus on faster-growing product lines. The Montague Works remained operational until 1996, when the company shut down the plant entirely. Two years later the manufacturing facility was demolished. Throughout the late twentieth century, the company faded out neoprene, Orlon, and Lycra manufacturing at its Maydown plant in favor of Kevlar production. Lastly, DuPont ceased operations at its Louisville Works in 2008, thus concentrating neoprene production at the Pontchartrain facility in Louisiana. In 2014, DuPont sold neoprene to a joint venture led by Denki Kagaku Kogyo of Japan. The Pontchartrain plant continues to operate in some capacity, as it also houses DuPont Protection Technologies, which manufactures Kevlar.