American Powder Mills
| Private | |
| Industry | chemicals |
| Successor | American Cyanamid |
| Founded | 1883 |
| Founder | American Powder Company |
| Defunct | 1929 |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Products | gunpowder |
American Powder Mills was a Massachusetts gunpowder manufacturing complex on the Assabet River. It expanded to include forty buildings along both sides of the river in the towns of Acton, Concord, Maynard, and Sudbury. Press mills, kernelling mills, glazing mills, and storehouses were dispersed over four-hundred acres to minimize damage during explosions. A narrow gauge railway transferred raw materials and products between the buildings.
Nathan Pratt purchased a mill pond dam on the Assabet River and converted the former sawmill to production of gunpowder in 1835. Pratt sold the mill to the American Powder Company in 1864. The mill manufactured 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of gunpowder per day through the American civil war. In 1872 American Powder Company joined the United States Gunpowder Trade Association, popularly known as the powder trust, with Austin Powder Company, DuPont, Hazard Powder Company, Laflin & Rand Powder Company, Miami Powder Company, and Oriental Powder Company.
American Powder Company reorganized as American Powder Mills in 1883 with business offices in Boston. The facility was sold to American Cyanamid in 1929, with gunpowder production continuing to 1940. In addition to black powder for blasting and other purposes, APM made smokeless gunpowder for shotgun-using hunters under the brand name "Dead Shot."
...
Wikipedia