Westlake: Where Louisiana Chemistry Got Its Start

Westlake, Louisiana, directly across the Calcasieu River from Lake Charles, started as a small community that grew around heavy industry. In the nineteen thirties the Mathieson Alkali Works built a chemical plant here, launching the petrochemical corridor that would define the Lake Charles region for the rest of the twentieth century. During the Second World War additional chemical plants arrived in rapid succession. Westlake was officially incorporated as a municipality in nineteen forty-five and today is surrounded by one of the largest concentrations of chemical manufacturing facilities in the Gulf South.