The "So, What Is Cork?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Like most summer days during my youth, I would head out the door and go either up to Kenny's house or over toward my friends who lived in the Jackson Street area to play ball or perhaps visit the train station.  Off in the distance, at the end of Jackson Street, was one of Lancaster's largest businesses known as Armstrong Cork Company.  

Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

My Grandpap worked in one of the offices and from time to time I would stop to visit with him.  When he retired they gave him a Hamilton Watch with the dates of his service to the company engraved on the back of it.  When he died I was given the watch as a keepsake.  I still have it today.  So, just exactly what did they do at Armstrong Cork Company?  

Thomas Armstrong

Armstrong's history dates back to the 1860s when Thomas Armstrong, the son of Scotch-Irish immigrant from London- derry, Ireland, started the company in a small two-man cork-cutting shop in Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania.  Not long before he was putting his name on every bag of Armstrong corks that had a written guarantee included in the bag.  Their motto was "Let the Buyer Have Faith" in the product they sold.  They prospered in times of prosperity as well as hardship due to their continued trust from buyers who saw their products as having quality and innovation.  When you think of cork you probably think of the stopper you put in a bottle of wine or champagne to keep it from spilling out of the bottle.  But, there is much more to cork that just that.  

A drawer full of corks for bottles.

Cork is one of the most versatile, naturally occurring renewable resources on earth.  Its properties make it float, impermeable, elastic and fire retardant.  Cork is a naturally occurring and renewable resource that is actually the bark of a live cork oak tree.  The bark which is harvested is called corkwood.  The tree is grown primarily in the southwestern part of Europe and the northern coast of Africa in an area surrounding the western edge of the Mediterranean Sea.  But, Portugal is the world's largest producer of cork with Spain being a close second.  It is also produced in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and France.  The cork oak tree can grow to a height of forty feet and measure up to two feet in diameter.  

The bark is being stripped from the tree.

When the tree is about five inches in diameter, the bark is stripped from it.  That "virgin cork" is coarse and dense and is used primarily for industrial use.  Eight to ten years later, after the tree has grown another coat of cork, that can be stripped and used for commercial use such as bottle stoppers.  Every eight to ten year later the bark can be stripped and used once again.  That can happen for the next 100 years or more.  At that point the bark will begin to lose some of its properties needed for production use, but the tree might live for several hundred years after that.  To process the bark, it must be dried.  The cork bark might be anywhere from one-half to two and one-half inches thick depending upon where the bark might have been harvested from the tree.  

Boiling of the bark from the cork oak tree.

It is then boiled and the rough outer coating removed by scraping.  Boiling it removes the tannic acid and increases the volume and elasticity of the corkwood.  It also becomes more soft and pliable.  It is then sorted into various grades and sent to manufacturers for processing into finished products.  Cork oak trees need to have warm wet winters and hot dry summers, but that didn't stop Mr. Charles E. McManus of the Crown Cork and Seal Company from giving it a try in California in 1939.  He had some short-term success, but couldn't produce enough to sustain the business.  It was thought to be unlikely that cork oak trees could be grown in North America until in 1950 when Arthur B. Dodge from Lancaster, who was the owner of Dodge Cork Company, reported he had a grove of cork oak trees growing in Lancaster County.  

Tearing down Armstrong Cork Company near my home.

Evidently there are no cork oak trees in Lancaster today, but there is at least one gigantic cork oak tree growing in Pennsyl- vania in Walling- ford, Delaware County.  It was last measured in 2003 and had a circumference of 71 inches, a height of 74 feet and a canopy spread of 36 feet.  The Armstrong Cork Company building near my home was torn down several years ago.  Armstrong Cork Co. still exists in Lancaster, but not as it did when my Grandpap worked there.  And, I doubt that they still use the same quantity of cork in their products as they did when they opened their plant in Lancaster.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.