The Kanawha Valley’s chemical industry reached its peak around 1950 and then began to decline. Big companies moved to Texas and the Gulf Coast where there was more space and they were closer to resources. The valley shifted to making smaller batches of specialty chemicals and plastics.

Some growth still happened in West Virginia, with new chemical plants built along the Ohio River from Huntington to the Northern Panhandle during the 1950s and 1960s.