Bauxite: The Death of a Dream
Pictured above: The Alcoa plant in Bauxite, originally built in 1952, but now owned and operated by the Almatis, Inc.
By Cody Berry
This week I wanted to cover the end of Bauxite as a company town. The end didn’t come because the mines were depleted or the aluminum industry shutdown after WWII. By 1944, bauxite production slowed down in Saline County, but the mines stayed open.1 Alcoa managers decided that another company town was no longer needed. Residents of the town realized that Alcoa was planning to eliminate the cost of providing a town for their employees.2
The end of the old town was a slow process but the whole time mining was still going on. The Hurricane Creek Plant was closed by the government after WWII. It was sold to Reynolds Metals Company who reopened it in 1946. Staff houses in Pine Haven were sold soon afterwards. The Bauxite School District consolidated with Siddell, Tull, Shaw, and Mt. Olive in 1949.3 In 1950, Bauxite township, which included Pine Haven, had a population of 2,495. In 1952, Alcoa constructed a $54 million processing plant where Cynamide and Alcoa Roads meet in Benton.4 This plant is used today by Almatis, Inc.
The Woodland neighborhood, which was home to the town’s black population, and Mexico Camp were closed by 1954. This caused the former residents to move elsewhere. Any buildings left behind were torn down. The Bauxite Club House, built in 1903, was razed in 1955. The Bauxite Theater was torn down in 1966. The hospital was also torn down after it fell into disrepair and served as a doctor’s office until 1964.5
Bauxite nearly became a ghost town. By the mid-1950’s, the houses became vacant and even the company store was closed by 1960. That year, the recorded population of the town of Bauxite was only 885, including the nearby community of West Bauxite. In 1962, a Bauxite Fire Ward map showed there were 49 dwellings in town. A revised map in 1967 revealed that there were 29 houses left standing.6 The once bustling town had almost vanished.
In 1967, the twenty-seven remaining families living in Bauxite received notification from Alcoa manager J.W. Wells that as of July 1, 1969, the town of Bauxite would cease to exist. The letter from company management said that the “passing of Bauxite was inevitable and only a matter of time.”7 During the company’s reign over the town, it was never incorporated.
On January 16, 1973, the town of Bauxite incorporated with the community of West Bauxite to form the version of the town that we know today.8 Alcoa closed its mining operations in 1981, and employment at its plant dropped from 1,800 in the 1970s to just 450 by 1999.9 In 1982, the Reynolds Metals Company closed and disassembled the Hurricane Creek Plant. That was the last year that bauxite was mined in Saline County for the production of aluminum.
Now, the alumina from imported bauxite is used to produce products for the oil and gas industry.10 In November 2023, Almatis, Inc., announced that it was ramping up production of calcined alumina at its plant in Benton. Today the alumina that is used in the manufacturing of ”refractories and ceramics.”11 Refractories are special materials designed to withstand the harsh conditions of high temperature processes. These are used in the production of industrial materials such as iron and steel, cement, petrochemicals, and even glass.12
Citations:
1 Laura Harrington, “Bauxite (Saline County),” CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/bauxite-saline-county-382/, Date Accessed July 23, 2025.
2 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 115
3 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 116-117, 133.
4 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 115.
5 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 116.
6 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 116. 7 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 117-118.
7 Gordon Scott Bachus, A Printed and Pictorial History of Bauxite, Heritage Publishing: North Little Rock, 1968, p. 117-118.
8 Laura Harrington, “Bauxite (Saline County),” CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/bauxite-saline-county-382/, Date Accessed July 24, 2025.
9 Ben F. Johnson III, Arkansas in Modern America 1930 – 1999, University of Arkansas Press: Fayetteville, 2000, p. 191.
10 J. Michael Howard, ”Bauxite Mining,” CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/bauxite-mining-2145/, Date Accessed July 24, 2025.
11 Almatis, Inc., ”Almatis Ramps Up Calcined Alumina Production Capacity in North America,” Almatis.com. https://www.almatis.com/en/whats-new/almatis-ramps-calcined-alumina-production-capacity-north-, Date Accessed August 6, 2025.
12 Almatis, Inc., ”Focused Segments Refractories,” Almatis.com. https://www.almatis.com/en/markets/refractories, Date Accessed August 6, 2025.