Kankakee’s Postwar “Boom”

Armstrong Cork Company’s asphalt tile plant is nearing completion in this aerial photo, probably taken  in 1946. The manufacturing building is at right; the office building is partly visible at left. The view is looking west across what is now Illinois Route 50. (Kankakee County Museum Photo Archive)

By Jack Klasey

June 14, 2025

“A shiny, brass-plated spade was used by the president of the Armstrong Cork Company Monday to turn the first shovelful of dirt and launch an $800,000 construction project…a new asphalt tile manufacturing plant on a 40-acre tract along U.S. Highway 54,” reported the Kankakee Republican-News on March 19, 1945.

Even though World War II was still raging (it would not end until September 2, 1945), that groundbreaking ceremony marked the beginning of what would be a decade-long postwar industrial “boom” for the Kankakee area.

“It is not by mere happenstance that our firm comes to Kankakee,” Armstrong president Henry Webb Prentis Jr. told the newspaper. “It is the result of a careful painstaking study of the community in comparison with 15 or 20 other sites. We find that Kankakee has made great strides forward in the last two decades, not only in economic life, but in educational and cultural fields and in civic spirit.”

The new plant, consisting of a manufacturing facility and an office building, would be located north of what is now Brookmont Boulevard on the west side of Illinois Route 50 (formerly U.S. Highway 54). It would manufacture a product —asphalt floor tile—that was expected to be in high demand for new housing as servicemen returning to civilian life found jobs, married, and started families.

Before the war began in 1941, Kankakee had already become a thriving industrial community, producing a wide variety of products, such as kitchen stoves (E-Z-Est Way Manufacturing), agricultural implements (David Bradley Company), furniture (Kroehler Mfg. Co. and Joseph Turk Manufacturing Co.), clothing (Bear Brand Hosiery and Commercial Uniform Factory, Inc.), paints (American Asphalt Paint Co. and J.W. Mortell Co.), and office supplies (Amberg File & Index). During the war, those local factories converted their output to such military needs as armor plating and artillery shells.

Six months after the Armstrong groundbreaking, there was another announcement of a major industrial plant to be located in Kankakee. On October 9, 1945, Ron Henrekin, secretary of the Kankakee Chamber of Commerce, disclosed that the city had been chosen as the site for a million-dollar plant to be built by the A.O. Smith Corporation. Located on an 82-acre plot, one mile south of the city on Illinois Route 49, the 360,000 square foot factory building would be 1,200 feet long by 300 feet wide.

Henrekin told the Kankakee Daily Journal (successor to the Republican-News) that the combined decision of A.O. Smith and Armstrong Cork to build in Kankakee, was “one of the biggest contributions to the potential growth and prosperity of the city in many years.”

In succeeding years, the A.O. Smith plant would expand steadily, producing residential and commercial water heaters, furnaces and air-conditioning units, and large Harvestore glass-lined tanks used to store farm silage. By 1954, the plant was Kankakee’s largest employer, with 1,300 workers and a $6 million annual payroll.

In October, 1948, the Borden Soy Processing Co. opened a $1,250,000 plant east of Hobbie Avenue, between Grinnell Road and the New York Central Railway tracks. Dominating the site was a 21-bin grain elevator capable of storing more than 960,000 bushels of soybeans. The adjacent manufacturing facility would produce soybean oil to be used in food products such as margarine and mayonnaise, and dried soybean “flakes” for livestock feed.

Across the railroad tracks from the Borden operation, General Foods had been operating a massive corn mill since 1938. The plant, which was expanded in 1945, produced a wide variety of corn products, such as hominy, corn meal, table grits, and brewers’ grits. In 1947, General Foods chose Kankakee as the site for what would become the world’s largest and most modern dog food manufacturing plant. The Gaines division would later operate an extensive research kennel east of Kankakee for its dog food products. A major addition to the General Foods operation took place in 1951, when the company built a giant product distribution center at the east end of its Kankakee property. General Foods products, such as Post breakfast cereals, Maxwell House Coffee, Jello, and other familiar brands were shipped to the Kankakee facility from their manufacturing plans, then distributed to customers across the country.

Another “General” —General Mills, Inc.—broke ground on July 28, 1947, for a plant on the south side of Kankakee. The plant, located along Kensington Road on the west side of the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, would begin operation in mid-September, 1948. “The plant,” explained the Kankakee Daily Journal in an August 28, 1948, article, “will not produce edible products, but will manufacture organic chemical products for the industrial and technical trades. These products will include fatty acids and their derivatives for use by manufacturers of paints, varnishes, soaps, rubber products, cosmetics, lubricating oils, greases, and resins.”

The year 1951 brought an announcement by Armour Laboratories of Chicago that the company had purchased a 172-acre property along U.S. Highway 54 just north of Bradley, to build a $5 million pharmaceutical plant. Speaking at a luncheon following groundbreaking ceremonies on June 21, Armour president F.W. Specht pointed out that his company had obtained a large site “so that we can expand for many years as the development of new and the increased demand for present products makes additional facilities necessary.”

Production of pharmaceutical products began in mid-1953. Under a variety of ownerships through the years, the manufacturing plant expanded several times. Today, the vast facility is owned by an Australian firm, CSL Behring, and is Kankakee County’s largest industrial employer.

Another multi-million-dollar manufacturing operation, Gould-National Batteries, Inc., began production on November 10, 1953. The plant, located along the north side of Illinois Route 17, just west of Kankakee, was the 21st Gould factory in the U.S. and Canada. It would primarily produce large industrial batteries, but also won federal contracts to build batteries for the Navy’s submarine fleet.

Another 1953 plant start-up was located along the Illinois Central tracks just south of the General Mills plant. The new plant, which opened in October, 1953, would be the sole production site for a well-known line of products: Simoniz automotive cleaners and polishes. The facility would also make a number of household products: floor waxes, furniture polish, and shampoos for household rugs and automotive upholstery.

Today, only four of the eight plants that constituted Kankakee’s“post-war boom,” are still operating, but bear different names: Armstrong became AHF Products; Borden Soy Bean Processing is now J.R. Short Snack Products, General Mills Chemical was renamed as Kensing Solutions, and Armour (as noted earlier) is CSL Behring. A.O. Smith, General Foods, Gould-National Batteries, and Simoniz are no longer a part of the local industrial scene.

Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted at jwklasey@comcast.net.