Kodachrome and the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant

Today’s Wall Street Journal carries a story about how Kodak is ending the Kodachrome line of wet film. Since I haven't shot a roll of actual film in about ten years, I'm not broken up, but there are people who love the stuff. I noticed therein that Kodachrome is so difficult to process that there's only one company in the US still certified by Kodak to handle Kodachrome anyway. That is (got to love the name) Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas. Parsons is a little town with an adorable Victorian downtown that was host to the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant from 1950 until early this year: it was BRACked in 2005. Back then, I did a small project for the operators, Day & Zimmermann, trying to (unsuccessfully) save the place from the Commission, and a colleague & I actually spent a whole day in Parsons back then. I don't normally talk about past clients, but after so much time and little effect, there seems little harm. DZ are still hoping to make munitions at the plant, having secured the PPE necessary for the work from the local redevelopment authority. Dwayne's apparently employs about 100 people, which probably makes it the fourth largest employer in the county, probably after the local hospital, DZ, and the country government. In any case, it's an entertaining and remarkable geographic connection between two industrial enterprises—wet film and artillery shells—that may be on the downside of sales volume, but which continue to have a truncated-but-important role for their buyers. It’s rather an indication how there’s often money to be made from customer segments that all others have passed by.