Between Darkness & Light | Flintkote

If there is one thing that I didn’t get enough of when exploring it was old industry, massive sprawling complexes that were built up slowly over their life span. And Flintkote was one that I only visited twice, but it certainly matched what I wanted in an old location. Buildings that were slowly being absorbed back into nature. You had to know what to look for when trying to check the spot out as it was mostly hidden by trees with only a rusted water tower and brick smoke stack sticking up behind a rusted fence.

For almost every site I’ve featured in this series, I’ve found a tonne of detailed information online about the site; either I already had notes prepared and written out, or they’re readily available online with a bit of Google searches. And then there is Flintkote. The Lockport Location needs more information online about it, especially in the early days of operation. There is very little information online for an industrial and canal community with an active historical society; most of my details come from an EPA report and a couple of websites that mirror information. The Lockport Paper Company began operating around 1880 on the proper, a small mill on Mill Street between Frost and Porter. The entire length of Mill Street proved to be a hotbed for industrial growth since the Jackson Lumber Company first opened up their operation in the mid 19th Century. The sawmill was replaced in 1898 by the Traders Paper Company. The location along the Eighteen Mile Creek provided for water power and access to the nearby Erie Canal that had recently undergone a significant expansion project two decades prior, provided for easy transport between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean along with a tonne of markets along the canal’s route. By the 20th Century, the site saw significant expansion, first in 1903 and then again in 1919. By the end of the decade, the area was occupied by three paper mills, and a power station was completed to feed the electrical and steam needed to operate them, removing the need for water power. The company went bust in the 1920s, and the factory was transformed to produce asphalt shingles under the Beckman Dawson Roofing Company. Beckman would only operate the plant for a few years when, in 1928, roofing giant Flintkote took over operations. Flintkote seemed to take over both the former Lockport and United Box Board and Paper Co plants stretching from Frost Street to Olcott Street along Mill. Flintkote continued to produce asphalt shingles at Lockport for another decade before switching to the production of felt and sound-dampening material specifically for the automotive industry. Despite diversification throughout Flintkote’s growing industrial empire, operations at Lockport remained in that field throughout the rest of the plant’s operation. It all ended in late 1971 when a fire ripped through the plant, and operations were shuttered shortly afterwards.

While Flintkote ceased operations, the surviving areas were purchased by a trucking company that operated out of some buildings in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. During an inspection, several barrels of Cresol were discovered on the property in 1983. While these barrels were still intact and stored correctly, they were quickly disposed of within a year. Again, history is vague when the trucking company moved out. In 1989, when the state began investigating the remediation of the Eighteen Mile Creek, more industrial waste came to light at the former site. Barrels of PCBs were found in the buildings, and the soil and creek bed showed extensive contamination from PCBs, PHAs, chromium, arsenic, lead, zinc, copper and asbestos. Further investigations and cleanup operations took place through the 1990s and early 2000s, and the contamination was widespread throughout the section of Lockport, including on residential properties that were still occupied. By the 2010s, the Environmental Protection Agency were involved, and the area was declared a Superfund site. The initial cleanup started in 2011, including the old power station; the main Flintkote plant saw demolition begin in 2014 and was completed by 2015, including relocating five residents and demolishing the houses. While the demolition is complete, the cleanup and remediation remain ongoing through 2023 to transform this former industrial corridor into a recreation and park space.

Honestly, I knocked a few months off my life from visiting this place, and I’m surprised none of us died or were seriously injured in the place. I am glad that I didn’t know about the sheer amount of contamination of the property because, having gone in 2008/9, the cleanup had yet to start. There was also the condition of the buildings; whole sections were falling apart. But it was an easy mark on the ‘other side of the tracks’ for Lockport in a seriously blighted neighbourhood. It can be hit or miss when getting into these places. But even driving an Ontario-plated car was never an issue as we could park relatively close on both occasions and slip in and out without any trouble from the locals. We were in some of the oldest sections of the proper based on the construction style, and I don’t have any real memories of the place. And while I would love to have more details, I can honestly have it pinned down to that, in both cases, the trips were rushed. Too rushed, almost both were on the tail ends of big meetups in Rochester, and we were heading home and making too many stops along the way. When I was back in the area in 2011, it was a total no-go because demolition had started at the nearby power station, and there was a lot of activity around. But in the long run, having no good or bad stories isn’t bad; the trips went off without a hitch.

I don’t know how I feel about my images from Flintkote. They’re not bad, but they aren’t that good either. These were taken between 2008 and 2009, so they are still relatively early in my photography. You can see my attempts at meaningful compositions through them. Still, at this point, I needed more equipment to fully realise my vision of what I wanted. I was trying too hard to be detail- and big-picture-oriented and wasn’t there for both. That said, there is a specific improvement in my skill between the two visits, along with an improvement in equipment, going from the D70s to the D300 and the Sigma to Nikkor lenses and my use of narrow depth of field in some detail shots. I also think that my colours on the first trip were a bit off, and looking at my EXIF data, it was set for Adobe RGB, so it wasn’t my first attempt at shooting RAW. The one thing I did was shoot some expired film through my F3 at this location. I didn’t include those because they could be better, probably because I made no adjustments and posted the scans straight from the lab. The one thing that impacted these images was that we were moving fast and set a rather ambitious plan for how many sites to visit when travelling from Rochester back to the Canadian border in Buffalo without the time to thoroughly check out everything.

Looking back at all this, Flintkote reminded me of the Barber Paper Mill in Georgetown, Ontario (Stay tuned next month). I do regret not spending as much time exploring the industrial sections of Lockport a little bit more when I visited twice and then again in 2011. It is a rich part of the city’s history. Still, it is often over looked outside the local community in favour of the more significant history of the Erie Canal. Sadly, today, there isn’t anything left to see. But in the long run, it is for the health of the community, and it is for the best. I hope the cleanup continues and the area is transformed into a public park space where people can enjoy the natural beauty of Eighteen Mile Creek and give the area a much-neededmuch-needed boost. One of the exciting things is that the last Google Maps street view of the area is from July 2011, so you can still see Flintkote as it stood before the demolition. You can see all the images from Flintkote over on Flickr!

Glossary of Terms
Cresol: Also known as hydroxytoluene, toluenol, benzol or cresylic acid, cresol is a group of aromatic organic compounds. They are widely-occurring phenols which may be either natural or manufactured. Cresols are precursors or synthetic intermediates to other compounds and materials, including plastics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and dyes.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs): A highly carcinogenic organochlorine compound, formerly used in industrial and consumer products such as carbonless copy paper, heat transfer fluids, and as dielectric and coolant fluids for electrical equipment. Production of PCBs was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 and internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH): A class of organic compounds found in coal and in oil deposits, and are also produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter—for example, in engines and incinerators or when biomass burns in forest fires. As of 2004, industrial processes and the extraction and use of fossil fuels made up slightly more than one quarter of global PAH emissions, dominating outputs in industrial countries such as the United States.