Manufacturing on this Mishawaka site along the south bank of the St. Joseph River began in the 1830s with the St. Joseph Iron Works and continued through the 19th and 20th centuries under businesses including Perkins Windmill Company, Mishawaka Woolen Manufacturing Company, United States Rubber Company, and Uniroyal. Known locally as Ball-Band for the famous logo on its footwear, the plant employed nearly 10,000 workers during World War II, and in 1943 women made up more than half the labor force on the "victory shift." Employment declined after the war, fell further when footwear production ended in 1969, and decreased again as Uniroyal Plastics Co. sold other product lines, leaving 58 buildings that once contained nearly 2 million square feet of industrial space to deteriorate. The factory closed in 1997, the city acquired the property in 1999 through bankruptcy proceedings, and demolition was completed in 2001. The footwear business began in 1886 when Martin Beiger and Adolphus Eberhart invented the All-Knit Boot, a woolen boot that held its shape without shrinking or stretching, and its red ball insignia on a black band became the trademark. Ball-Band later developed a vacuum-pressure vulcanization method that melded rubber into shoe fabric and produced rubber shoes, boots, and tennis shoes including Red Ball Jets. Beginning in 1934, the plant expanded beyond rubber footwear into coated fabrics such as Leatherette, raincoat materials, Vinylite, and Naugahyde for clothing, upholstered furniture, sporting goods, automobile seating, and luggage. In 1937 it began producing foam rubber for automotive cushions, mattresses, office and theater seating, hospital rings, and bed padding, later shifting Koylon automotive cushions from sponge rubber to urethane foam after wartime shortages of natural latex led to synthetic materials derived from petroleum products. The auto mat business started in 1939 and supplied rubber and vinyl mats for vehicles made by Studebaker, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler Corporation. In 1941 the plant joined the war effort by fabricating self-sealing rubber fuel containers for B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder bombers and U.S. Navy PT boats, and in later years it manufactured fuel cells for aircraft including the F/A-18 Hornet and B-52 Stratofortress and fuel containers for Tomahawk cruise missiles. From the 1950s the factory made Ensolite, a flexible closed-cell foam used by the military during the Korean War and in civilian products such as athletic mats, life jackets, and artificial turf padding, while research and development of the thermoplastic Royalite began in 1962 for dashboards, canoes, and luggage. Heavy rubber extrusions and industrial adhesives were added in 1958, with roofing adhesives becoming important later, and in 1959 the plant began producing Minuteman and Polaris missile rocket components until that work ended after motor cases became unnecessary for missiles deployed in silos or submarines.