College Point began as a 19th-century company town centered on Conrad Poppenhusen's rubber factory, and to this day it retains an industrial character. Facilities like the New York Times printing plant, the Pepsi bottling plant, and several concrete factories still anchor the community. Once a predominantly Irish and German enclave, it has evolved into a diverse, working-class neighborhood home to first and second generation families from China, Korea, and Latin America.
In the mid-19th century, German Conrad Poppenhusen moved to the US to open up a whalebone factory on the banks of the East River. Whalebone was used in everything from corsets to buggy whips and backscratchers, but by the 1850s, whales were becoming increasingly scarce, and a replacement for this strong, flexible material was needed.
Poppenhusen crossed paths with Charles Goodyear, who had spent years attempting to transform the sap from the rubber tree into a substance stable enough to put into mass production. Poppenhusen saw promise in Goodyear's vision and gave him money to continue his tinkering. After Goodyear finally perfected vulcanization (heating latex with sulfur to make it durable), he granted Poppenhusen exclusive rights to the process for several years.
In 1859, Poppenhusen laid the cornerstone of the India Rubber Comb Company on the shores of Flushing Bay. For decades, the factory churned out corset stays, syringes, and combs.
Poppenhusen paved streets, constructed housing and stores, laid water and sewage systems, and connected the peninsula to Flushing with a cobblestone road. He founded the Flushing and North Side Railroad and built the Poppenhusen Institute, which housed a library, vocational training programs, the country's first free kindergarten, and even a jail. His workers received health and death benefits, bonuses for Civil War service, and job guarantees upon their return.