The
American Viscose Company was established in 1909 as the American wing of
Courtaulds, a British textile company specializing in silk. The company patented the method of production of
viscose (also known as artificial silk, and later, rayon), and built its first United States plant at
Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, in 1910. The company purchased along the
Roanoke River, which provided the large amount of water necessary for the rayon manufacturing process. In 1921, the complex expanded again with the construction of two more spinning units inside a second large, one-story building located just east of the first. By 1922, over 1,000 women were working at the plant, many of whom had come from surrounding rural areas. The plant itself had its own 24-hour, 2,000-seat capacity cafeteria, as well as an infirmary and athletic fields, and by 1923, a
social club with 2,800 members. The company built no other housing for its employees, but by 1925 much of the land in Southeast Roanoke between downtown and the plant had been developed with single family houses. The plant was also the largest employer of residents of
Wasena, a neighborhood to the district's west that saw significant growth in the 1920s. The Viscose Company announced another expansion in 1925, and by May of the following year a fifth spinning unit was operational. In that year the company
laid off 1,200 at the Roanoke plant and reduced the remaining employees' work week to 32 hours. In 1937, the company saw its name changed to the American Viscose Corporation, and in that same year also adopted a 40-hour work week with a 10% increase in wages. A 1939 collective bargaining agreement between American Viscose and the
Textile Workers Union of America increased wages an additional 6%. The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Henry Morgenthau had insisted that the British sell certain United States-based assets in order to offset some of the costs of the
Lend-Lease program.Following the conclusion of the war, however, a combination of factors led to the plant's decline. American Viscose had invested in newer facilities in
Front Royal, Virginia, and
Nitro, West Virginia (the former taking over for Roanoke as possibly the largest rayon factory worldwide), and the Roanoke location was unequipped to produce newer manmade fabrics such as nylon that were supplanting rayon in the market. Sixteen of the original buildings still stand, many with little alteration. Due to the site's decades of heavy industrial use, in the late 1980s the property saw a preliminary investigation by the federal
Superfund program as a potential cleanup location, but deemed not to be a priority. A full investigation by the
EPA in 2001 confirmed that assessment. A turn-of-the-century
flood control project by the
US Army Corps of Engineers was delayed by the complex's history. The district was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 2019. In 2023, the
Roanoke City Council approved a plan to begin transforming the American Viscose district into a mixed-use development called Riverdale. A collaboration between the city, the Roanoke Economic Development Authority, and a local developer, the project granted a $10 million forgivable loan for acquisition and cleanup of the property in return for at least $50 million invested over a 17-year period. Following the sale, preliminary environmental tests at the site located a high potential for
vapor intrusion due to a
hazardous waste tank that was once located adjacent to the property. Chemsolv, a tenant of the industrial park, had been fined over $600,000 in 2014 for improper waste storage, but the company removed the tank before investigators could properly determine the extent of its effects. , a deed restriction was in place prohibiting residential development in the Riverdale site; the owners hope to have the ban lifted after further remediation of the
brownfield. ==References==