Thomas Edison Hung Out in Hellertown

Adolf Franz Klingner (1885-1959) did not want to work for his father's hotel chain in Austria. After an emotional argument with his father, Klingner left home and sought a new life and career in America. He was a brilliant young man who had been educated at the University of Prague. In 1904, Thomas Edison hired the 19-year-old Klingner as a researcher in one of his New York laboratories. That same year, Klingner married Mary Joska.

Edison saw something in Klingner. He offered to fund a new research facility/factory in Pennsylvania, with Klingner as its general manager. Klingner found a suitable eight acre location in Hellertown on Route 412. A structure was built on the property by 1918 and by 1922, according to an industrial report, the location housed a spark plug company that employed 317 people. At that time eight of the employees were under the age of 16.

In 1920, Klingner and his family built a new home on Second Avenue in Hellertown. Thomas Edison stayed with the Klingner family in their home several times over the years.

The Hellertown plant that Klingner oversaw was called the Silvex Company. Klingner developed and held several U.S. patents on spark plugs and glow plugs for diesel engines. In 1928, the Edison Corporation merged with the Splitdorf Electrical Company--a move that allowed Edison to manufacture radios. The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was a partner in this new company, and the merger included the Hellertown plant, which by that time was housed in a two-story brick building on the Route 412 property.

The Edison/Splitdorf Company was sold to Champion Spark Plugs in 1951. Champion officials later stated that liquid wastes were dumped into unlined lagoons there from 1930 to 1976. Champion, which was at one time the largest spark plug maker in the world, in 1982 closed the Hellertown plant because of a recession. This caused 260 workers to lose their jobs.

Because Edison/Splitdorf and then Champion dumped waste material (including Benzene Tetrachloroethylene, Trichloroethylene, Vinyl chloride, trans-1,2 Dichloroethylene and cis-1,2 Dichloroethylene) on the Hellertown property, the soil and water there were tested and found to be contaminated. The property was designated a Superfund site by the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Agency in 1987.

Remediation has involved removing topsoil and digging wells around the property to test the groundwater. An asphalt cap to cover the property's lagoon area was completed in 1994. A groundwater extraction system consisting of a single well was installed in 1996.

The contaminated materials from the former Champion spark plug factory continue to be transported by truck off the property, and the complete cleanup is expected to continue until 2016 at a cost of $4.4 million. Paikes Enterprises, Inc. purchased the 7.6-acre tract of land in June of 1988 for $800,000. The current property owner is Federal Mogul.