Ann Genader

Columnist

While environmentalists and leaders in municipalities across America today struggle to convince more people to “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle,” history tells us that a small municipality in northern New Jersey embraced the recycling industry 120 years ago and was known worldwide as a model industrial community.

Butler in Morris County is just a little over two square miles in size but the tiny borough is documented in history as having been the oldest and largest manufacturer of Hard Rubber products in the world. The products were made from recycled rubber.

In front of one of the still existing historic factory complex buildings is a historical marker that was erected in 1979 by the Morris County New Jersey Heritage Commission. It reads: “American Hard Rubber Company 1898. Company and Affiliated Predecessors and Oldest Manufacturer of Hard Rubber Products in the World/ Butler Model Industrial Village Developed Around Rubber Industry in 1880. Town Named for Richard Butler, Rubber Executive.”

Richard Butler, a hard working business man from New York City bought into an existing rubber factory. In 1879 he became president of the Rubber Comb and Jewelry Company (later named the Butler Hard Rubber Company. Improvements to the rubber mill caused extensive growth to the town. The expansion of the factory caused hundreds of workers to take jobs in the factory. Many moved their families into the community.

The beginning of the recycling industry dates back to 1869 when the Day Rubber Company was started in Butler by New York City dentist Dr. Newbrough and Horace Day. For a short time they manufactured dental gum. There were actually a number of companies that started business in the beginning years of the rubber recycling industry in Butler before it took hold.

The factory and its products had a reputation of being very important for the military effort during World War II when enemy forces held all sources of the rubber supply needed by United States fighters. From no other available source other than the reclaimed (recycled) materials could there be the 300,000 tons of rubber that was produced annually by the Butler industry. It has been said by historians that without the product the United States could not have won the war.

Products that the American Hard Rubber Company was especially known for were bowling balls and pocket combs. Washed rubber was mixed with a designated percentage of sulpher to produce combs with a black lasting finish for the ACE Company.

I doubt if anyone living in the greater Butler area at the time of the Pequanoc Rubber Company Fire has forgotten the terrible night of Feb. 26, 1957 when the economy of Butler and other towns for miles around was suddenly, drastically changed. There would be 400 people out of work by morning after a factory building was destroyed during the dark of night by an unbelievable inferno that was seen across the sky for miles around.

Fire companies and other emergency workers from many North Jersey towns responded to try to help but there was little they could do to stop the raging fire that tore through the factory building.

I remember waking up in the early morning hours at home in West Milford hearing the sound of the fire sirens and related noise from speeding emergency vehicles going south on Macopin Road in hopes of helping Butler firefighters. Looking toward the south I saw that the sky was ablaze.

There were 52 fire companies responding to what was called the nation’s worst disaster that year. Damage estimate was $13 million.

The start time of the fire in the drying room was listed by emergency officials as 12:30 a.m. People familiar with the factory said there had been fires there previously, but there had been no previous problem in quickly extinguishing them.

Reclamation from old tires was the focus of the company business at the time. The process in place involved grinding up the tires and sending them on a conveyer belt to the acid department where they were cooked in sulphuric acid to remove fibers. In the drying room air was circulated over an area where hot steam coils dried out the rubber. Then, the reclaimed rubber was made into large sheets for shipment to tire companies.

Raymond Struble, interviewed by reporter Deborah Walsh some years later, recalled that as he arrived at the fire scene he saw that the blaze was at the far end of the building. He was part of the fire brigade that extinguished the fires. He said there was a reverse sprinkler system there and someone who thought they were turning on the sprinkler was instead turning it off.

Struble worked with Harold Watt in the accounting department. He told the reporter interviewing him that when he reached the fire scene the office building had not yet caught fire. He and Watt carried as many records from the safe to safety that they could. From those records they were able to reconstruct an inventory.

Rubber fires are very difficult to extinguish so there was not much that firefighters could do to stop the blaze. Gasoline pumps located close to Main Street at John I. Marion’s garage across from the fire were among the serious concerns. Embers were flying through the air.

Firemen were using equipment to douse water on roofs of buildings in the area. People were out with their garden hoses spraying water to help where they could.

Shirley and Harry Rhinesmith were a young married couple living in an apartment on Hamburg Turnpike and she remembers them responding to a request and holding hoses that were spraying water during the emergency effort. She was then a young beginning teacher at Samuel Donald Elementary School in Bloomingdale.

The firefighters somehow managed to extinguish the fire within 24 hours. With spot fires continuing to flare up the firemen continued to wet down the fire scene for a couple of weeks after it started.

Throughout the fateful night the Salvation Army representatives were at the winter cold, blazing inferno, providing soup to warm the firefighters. Ladies Auxiliary members provided sandwiches and coffee throughout the awful night.

“It was tough throwing water on a building and thinking there goes my livelihood,” Struble told the reporter. “This was our bread and butter in those days. I remember that fire as vividly as anything I remembered before then or since.”

Claude Post, owner of Post’s Radio business on Main Street, recalled that he and his wife Eleanor had just retired to bed for the night when the “fire whistle” began sounding. He remembered looking out of his window and seeing flames so bright that it looked like the electric lights were still on. The couple observed the spectacular scene from Ace Road, seeing flames leap up 200 to 300 feet and spreading from one end of the building to the other.

Bob Nicholson, former Oak Ridge resident who lives in Sparta, still remembers the fateful night like it was yesterday. M

“We stood in front of the Oldsmobile office and showroom on Main Street,” Bob said. “From that vantage point we saw the fire creep into the area where Matt Spring, years before had been personnel director with Shirley Kitchell Nicholson as his secretary. Before our eyes we saw the entire office consumed!”

People continued to be amazed after the fire that no one had been hurt or killed before it was put out. Firemen had to be sprayed down with water to avoid being burned by the torrid rubber while they battled the flames. Their success in preventing the fire from spreading to and destroying other structures is also remarkable.

It seems though that this was the beginning of the end for the rubber reclamation industry in Butler. After the fire destroyed the Pequanoc Rubber Mill the company decided to not rebuild the burned out plant. They opted for a smaller business site and moved to Georgia.

The Amerace Corporation closed their plant in 1974 and later in the 1980s shut down their corporate headquarters in Butler.

Losing the factories was a big economic loss for area people. After the fire the company did offer to find jobs for those who were put out of work. Two years after the plant closed the last trains left the Butler station, ending the train service that began in 1872. The town changed drastically.

For those interested in seeing photos of the fire and artifacts such as ACE combs, collections can be seen at the Butler Museum, located on Main Street in the train station building. For information about when the museum is open, call 973-838-7222 for information.

Today’s Butler people have the same drive to succeed that those before them had. There are small businesses and shops and a brewery.

In 2005, the Dallas Contracting Company of South Plainfield was contracted to demolish the entire old burned out rubber plant. Necessary environmental cleanup – involving Brownfield redevelopment - was the first step to transform the abandoned unimproved site to the upscale residential neighborhood and retail location now on the site. The story of historic Butler has started a new chapter!