Wooden matches need several elements to light successfully.
English druggist John Walker discovered this fact in 1826, when he invented the friction match. Friction matches work by rubbing two surfaces together to create a small flame, which Walker discovered after dropping a matchstick covered with a chemical solution onto his hearth. When it burst into flame, he saw the practical application and started selling matches.
Friction caused white phosphorus on the match head to ignite another substance, potassium chlorate, which burned slowly enough to light the matchstick itself. White phosphorus turned out to be volatile and dangerous, however, especially to workers in plants where it was used.
In the early 1850s, another Englishman, Arthur Albright invented safety matches. Instead of using white phosphorus on the match itself, Albright’s matches put a less explosive red phosphorus that he had formulated on a strip on the outside of the matchbox.
The safer method of ignition caught on. In 1853, American Edward Tatnall caught wind of the new matches, and formed the Diamond Match Co. in Wilmington, Delaware. Diamond would become the largest manufacturer of matches in the United States by the late 1800s, a title which the company still holds today.
Potassium chlorate became the key ingredient in this particular kind of matchmaking. The substance derives from potash ore, which formed from salts left behind from when inland seas and oceans dried up in ancient times.
Potash mining continues to be big business, with Canada the world’s largest producer. The substance is used mainly for fertilizer, with about 15 percent of it used for a variety of other purposes including, but not limited to matches.
Kelp turns out to be one of the marine sources for potash, a fact known as early as 1719, when offshore kelp beds were harvested and converted into potash in Scotland’s northern Orkney Islands.
With demands for potash rising in the early 1900s, producers began turning to alternative sources. Germany was one of the main sources for potash, but that supply line closed with the advent of World War I and a German embargo on sales of potash to the U.S.
The Diamond Match Co. was sold on the idea of using the kelp process, and began investigating building a conversion plant. It already had a branch factory at Chico in northern California, so it made sense to build the kelp facility in the state.
The company decided that large offshore beds of kelp that stretched for nearly ten miles from Malaga Cove to the San Pedro breakwater offered the best source for the raw materials such an operation required.
In early February 1916, company representatives announced that Diamond Match would build a plant that would convert kelp harvested from offshore waters into potash in Southern California. Originally planned for Long Beach, the company instead selected a site in Wilmington, just north of the East Basin of the Port of Los Angeles on the Salt Lake railroad line.
The processing plant employed from 60-100 workers when it opened in early June 1916. The advent of World War I in Europe had driven potash prices up, as various of its derivatives were used to make munitions. Several similar plants had already been built nearby in Long Beach.
The Joe Fellows Yacht and Launch Co. in Wilmington was commissioned to build a seagoing kelp harvester to gather the raw materials for the operation. In 1917, Fellows built two boats for Diamond, a 60-foot tugboat to tow the harvesters back and forth and a scow to carry the raw materials, as well as an additional larger harvester.
Unfortunately for Diamond and the other companies operating kelp factories, the bottom fell out of the potash market with the end of World War II. Germany re-entered the market, and demand from munitions plants fell.
A few days before Christmas 1918, Diamond Match announced that it had closed the Wilmington plant, released all of its workers, and was in the process of dismantling the facility. It turned out that the plant had not been a huge boon to the local economy, as the majority of its workers had lived in Long Beach.
Another large kelp conversion plant, the Hercules Powder Plant in San Diego, also closed at around the same time. It was the largest of the 11 such companies that had been operating in the state at the time.
What was once a thriving new industry basically had been shuttered by 1920. The equipment and boats from the Diamond Match plant were sold off to a San Francisco company, Crowley Launch & Tugboat.
In January 1920, the Bunn Lumber Co. announced that it would move its operations into the former Diamond Match site, and the company’s brief presence in the Harbor Area ended for good.
Land mining remains the most widely used method of obtaining potash, though fertilizers made from seaweed do offer a reasonable alternative. Oh, and the Diamond Match Co., now owned by Royal Oak Enterprises of Roswell, Georgia, remains the largest match manufacturer in the U.S., producing an estimated 12 billion of them annually.
Sources:
Diamond Match Company website.
Los Angeles Herald archives.
Los Angeles Times archives.
San Pedro News Pilot archives.
Wilmington Journal archives.
Wikipedia.