Indiana Army Ammunition Plant

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The Army Ammunition Plant consisted of over a thousand acres of facilities that employed thousands of Southern Indiana residents during wartime. For this reason, the access road to the facility, Highway 62, was developed into a four lane divided highway to accommodate the worker traffic. Currently, the ammunition plant is abandoned and is being sold off piece by piece and converted into the "River Ridge Commerce Center" among other uses.

homepages.ius.edu/RVEST/INAAP.htm

INAAP consists of three major facilities: Indiana Ordnance Works Plant 1 (IOW#1), a smokeless powder plant; Hoosier Ordnance Plant (HOP), which manufactured, loaded, and packed bags for propellant charges; and Indiana Ordnance Works Plant 2 (IOW #2), a rocket-propellant plant.

On June 26 1940, congress passed the first national defense appropriations act, and four days later, approved the Munitions Program, which paved the way for construction of IOW#1, the first single-base smokeless powder plant authorized by the National Defense Program.

The location was chosen for its proximity to the Ohio River, as a plentiful supply of water being essential in powder production. Charlestown was also attractive for the amount of undeveloped land between the town and the river, thus decreasing the number of people who would be displaced. The land was also inexpensive, as farming in the area was declining. Much of this land was purchased by the contractor and resold to the government, though the majority was acquired by the government through Declaration of Taking.

Indiana Ordnance Works Plant 1, though government-owned, was operated by the DuPont Company.
On February 5, 1941, construction began on the Hoosier Ordnance Plant, a load, assembly, and pack (LAP) facility which was used to prepare cannon, artillery, and mortar projectiles. The plant went into operation on September 2 of that year, and construction was completed by January 31, 1942. The operation of HOP was handled by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
Work did not begin on IOW#2, the rocket propellant plant, until December 1944. Though the construction of the plant was never completed, production did take place there for about five weeks before the facility was shut down shortly after Japan's surrender in August 1945.
The INAAP, when complete, covered 10, 655 acres, and consisted of 1700 buildings, eighty-four miles of railroad track, 190 miles of road, and thirty miles of fence. The final cost of the plant was over 133.4 million dollars.
In 1989 the US Army placed the "replacement value" of the INAAP at 1.9 billion dollars.