Global Celotex

By 1928, the New Orleans-founded Celotex Company had expanded its international operations to include much of the European continent. As a sugar cane industry, Celotex boasted a $12 million production out of New Orleans.(1) The bagasse building material shipped directly from its Mississippi River plant to these foreign markets.

Dependence on European exports began to detrimentally  impact the company in 1938, when apprehensions regarding political stability caused stock market fluctuations. Celotex posted quarterly losses and began to reconfigure its business for domestic and wartime production.


(1)"Sugar Cane Industries." The Times-Picayune 4 February 1931.

Image above:  From Verwendung von Celotex in Gebäuden. Chicago: The Celotex Company, 1928. This copy bears the stamp of the Hungarian Celotex representative, Magyar Celotex-Árusito Vállalat, which was located in Budapest on Harmincad Street. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.