Peoria Station

Corn Products International has expanded its polyols manufacturing operation at Mapleton. The plant is served by the Toledo Peoria & Western, which has gained new business as a result of the expansion.

Corn Products purchased the facility from New Castle, Delaware-based SPI Polyols in February 2007. SPI Polyols apparently received corn syrup, the raw material used to manufacture polyols such as sorbitol, by truck. Corn Products, however, is shipping corn syrup from its Bedford Park, Illinois plant to Mapleton by rail. This was quickly deducted by the sudden number of loaded (truck springs are pressed) tank cars displaying Corn Products, affiliate Canada Starch (CASCO) and Crystal Car Line markings arriving the area on TP&W trains immediately following the acquisition, and also that such cars were also spotted on the Canadian National-TP&W interchange tracks at Gilman, Illinois (CN is one of three railroads which serve Corn Products’ Bedford Park facility).

Corn Products International has a history in the area. It purchased Illinois Sugar Refining Corp.’s Pekin plant in 1906 and operated its as “Corn Products Refining Corp.” until 1958, when the merger with Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey-based Best Foods International eliminated “Refining” from the company name. Although the company adopted the more modernistic “CPC International” name in 1969, the familiar Corn Products name stuck.

In 1980, CPC and Texaco formed a 50-50 partnership called Pekin Energy Company Inc. to transform the corn sweeteners and starch facility into an ethanol plant. Corn Products’ Pekin plant ceased operations on October 31, 1981, and in December, Pekin Energy shipped its first load of ethanol. The partners sold their operation to Williams Companies in 1995, which three years later adopted the name, “Williams Bio-Energy.” In 2003, investors purchased Williams’ ethanol operations which became Aventine Renewable Energy Inc.

- David P. Jordan