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 company began with the production of gunpowder. Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, the company shifted its focus away from gunpowder production and toward chemistry innovations.

The Louviers Works manufactured dynamite in Colorado, beginning production in 1908. The works provided explosives, primarily for mines in the region, and was part of the DuPont Company Explosives Department.

The DuPont Company's Explosives Manufacturing Department was created in May 1917 by a merger of the Black Powder Operating Department and the High Explosives Operating Department. From the latter, it inherited its own research laboratory, Eastern Laboratory, at Gibbstown, New Jersey, established in 1905. The Explosives Manufacturing Department was renamed the Explosives Department as part of the 1921 reorganization of the company, which created autonomous industrial departments. It absorbed the Smokeless Powder Department in 1936. By the 1970s, the DuPont Company had virtually left the explosives business, and in 1971, the Explosives Department became part of the Polymer Intermediates Department.