The Warren Sentinel

Article Date: December 16, 2004

Historical display chronicles the story of Avtex

By Kevin Seabrooke

The American Viscose / AVTEX legacy project display in the Warren County Government Center was dedicated Tuesday night following a joint meeting of the Front Royal Town Council and Warren County Board of Supervisors.

Before a gathering of former AVTEX employees, their families and officials from the Town of Front Royal and Warren County, FMC site manager Doug Bement presented Warren County Board of Supervisors Chairman Tony Carter with a plaque to be mounted with the wall display.

The plaque is inscribed with these words: “This exhibit is dedicated to all employees of the Front Royal plant whose hard work has contributed to the peace, prosperity, and heritage of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Region.”

In accepting the plaque, Carter acknowledged the importance and the impact the rayon plant had in Warren County.

“Many people, myself included, were sent through college by hard work at AVTEX,” Carter said.  “The people who worked there helped build this town.”

The display was funded through grant donations from Warren County and FMC Corp., the primary responsible party in charge of remediation at the AVTEX Superfund site.

The display consists of three panels mounted on the wall.  The center panel is four-by-eight feet and traces the history and development of American Viscose/ Avtex and the role of its products in the world.

The panels on either side are four-by six feet.  The panel on the left tells the story of the development of rayon.  The right panel details future plans for the Avtex site, including the conservancy park, Eco-business Park, and the Shenandoah Center for Heritage and the Environment (SCHE).

Paul Brooks, who started on the labor gang at AVTEX in 1945 and worked as a chauffeur his last seven years there, said he liked the display and that it was “nice to be recognized.”

“I have an 8-by-10 photo of the work gang taken in 1952,” Brooks said.  “There are 82 men in the picture and now there are only five left.”

Jim Colbert, an SCHE board member who worked at AVTEX for over 38 years, also liked the display.

“We did a lot of gathering of artifacts,” Colbert said.  “I think they did a good job of telling the story of American Viscose.”

Before most of the AVTEX facilities were demolished, almost 34,245 cubic feet of materials and artifacts were collected.  Approximately 22, 830 cubic feet of that material is now stored in a temporary site in the Old Virginia Industrial Park near the AVTEX site.

Colbert also stressed the importance the plant had to the town of Front Royal.

“A lot of families came here, bought homes and raised children,” he said.  “It was a little country town before that plant came.  It really did build the town up.”

The Economic Development Authority (EDA) and the Shenandoah Center for Heritage and the Environment (SCHE) have a short-term agreement to establish the Center as the entity to preserve the cultural heritage of American Viscose/AVTEX.