Editing Eddystone, Pennsylvania (section)

==Industrial history==
[[File:Eddystone PA factory.JPG|thumb|Old factory in Eddystone]]
Eddystone has a history of heavy industry. [[Eddystone Arsenal]] became the largest [[Baldwin Locomotive Works]] plant (the smaller being in [[Spring Garden, Philadelphia]]). Baldwin was once the largest manufacturer of [[steam locomotive]]s in the world. Today an [[Exelon]] generating station occupies some of the riverfront. The [[Platt-LePage Aircraft Company]] built some of the earliest [[rotorcraft]] on adjacent land to the northeast (outside the borough). The site's association with military helicopters continued through [[McDonnell Aircraft]] and [[McDonnell Douglas]] all the way to the present, as a [[Boeing]] Integrated Defense Systems plant now operates there.

During [[World War I]], [[Remington Arms]] opened the Eddystone Rifle Plant on Baldwin land with Baldwin management. Here it produced the [[Pattern 1914 Enfield]] rifle and [[M1917 Enfield]] rifle. A large portion of the rifles used by American soldiers in France in World War I were made at Eddystone.<ref name="Westing 1966 p=81">{{Harvnb|Westing|1966|p=81}}.</ref> In January 1918 Remington Arms was absorbed by [[Midvale Steel|Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company]], which took over the rifle plant.<ref>{{Harvnb|Westing|1966|pp=80–81}}.</ref>

Baldwin also formed a subsidiary company (Eddystone Ammunition Corporation) in 1915 to build [[artillery shell]]s (Russian-model on British order).<ref name="Westing 1966 p=81"/> On 10 April 1917, 133 people were killed in an [[Eddystone explosion|explosion at the artillery shell plant]].<ref>{{citation |author= Ivory, Karen |title= Pennsylvania Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival | publisher= Morris Book Publishing |place= [[Kearney, NE]] |date= 2007 |edition= 2nd |pages= 73–77}}</ref> A monument in the [[Chester Rural Cemetery]] recognizes the unidentified victims.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.delcotimes.com/2017/03/25/eddystone-remembers-100th-anniversary-of-ammo-plant-blast-that-rocked-nation/ | title = Eddystone remembers 100th anniversary of ammo plant blast that rocked nation | author = Kathleen Carey | date = March 25, 2017 | newspaper = Delco Daily Times | accessdate = March 12, 2023 }}</ref>

In 1917 the U.S. government also placed artillery shell orders, and bought out some of the assets of the Eddystone Ammunition Corporation. A new corporation, the similarly named Eddystone Munitions Company, was formed by Baldwin to make the shrapnel for the shells.<ref>{{Harvnb|Westing|1966|p=82}}.</ref>