[2] The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps constructed the Vigo Plant in 1942, prior to the official start of the U.S. biological weapons program.
[3] Portions of the Vigo Plant were then leased to the Delco Radio Corporation for the manufacture of military electronics equipment.
[1] On May 8, 1944 the Army Special Projects Division (SPD) directed the Vigo Plant to convert its facilities for full-scale biological agent production.
Ferguson Construction Company; they added fermenter tanks, slurry heaters, laboratories and the other necessities of a biological warfare facility.
[1] After U.S. BW scientists worked through the problems presented by trying to mass-produce bombs that were to be filled with a deadly biological agent, the production line was essentially ready to operate.
The scientific director of the U.S. BW program, Ira Baldwin, selected Walter Nevius, a specialist in pathogen containment, to lead the safety inspections which began when he arrived at Vigo in the summer 1944.
[1] Nevius was considered conscientious, so much so that at one point the Army wanted to replace him; this resulted in Baldwin resigning his position and becoming an "advisor" to the U.S. BW program.
[7] Eighteen boxcars were loaded with caustics, sulfuric acid, bleach, tributyl phosphate and 765,000 explosive detonators and shipped elsewhere for storage.
[5] After the lease agreement, and later the sale of the plant,[5] was finalized the company transferred John E. McKeen to the Vigo site in 1948 in preparation for the production of streptomycin.
[9] Per a 1994 arms-control agreement between the United States and Russia each nation was permitted to inspect three sites in the other country that it suspected were biological warfare facilities.
[11] The Russians chose to tour Pfizer's main research center in Groton, Connecticut,[4] the Plum Island facilities, including Building 101, and the Vigo Ordnance Plant.
[11] The Russians were shown the decrepit military facilities at Vigo, many of which were shuttered, padlocked and in an obvious state of disrepair.