Indiana Army Ammunition Plant

What the record says

An industrial landmark with a family story behind every shift.

The federal government hired DuPont to establish a smokeless-powder plant near Charlestown. Construction started in summer 1940 and production began in April 1941. Bag loading and storage facilities followed. [1]

The Indiana Historical Bureau documents the acquisition of farms, homes and other properties, followed by a huge arrival of construction workers. [2] This was a change to a whole community as well as a manufacturing project.

Which name appears in your family papers?

Records may refer to Indiana Ordnance Works or the Hoosier Ordnance Plant. The complex received the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant name in 1963; its operating history included later Korean and Vietnam War production. [1] A photograph’s caption or an employer name can help identify which period a family remembers.

Help recover the working day.

Production totals cannot tell us how a particular worker got there, where a family lived or what a child remembered about the town. A labeled employee picture, a housing address, a school memory or a story about the commute could add that missing detail.

You can begin with a short contribution: “My grandmother worked there in about 1943,” followed by what is known and what is uncertain. Include an approximate year and the source of the memory. Please crop private information from personal records before submitting.

Read the companion story: When Charlestown became a wartime boomtown →