The Peters Cartridge Factory opened in the late 1800s in Kings Mill, Ohio and at one point employed 3,000 people making ammunition and gunpowder. According to Cincinnati’s WCPO, the company’s founder held 35 patents and invented the world’s first automatic cartridge-loading machine.
Though the ammunition manufacturing was abandoned after World War II, Peters Cartridge has still had a number of visitors over the years. Many businesses leased space off and on for warehouse or production purposes.
Additionally, the facility has become a hot spot for ghost hunters, who say that the years of lethal fires and explosions at the plant have brought spirits of the dead back for paranormal activity.
In 1985, the factory found itself on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 2012 on a more dubious list — the Superfund cleanup site list — after the EPA determined the soil around the complex was highly contaminated with mercury, copper, and lead.
Many in the area likely wondered if Peters would ever become more than a blighted eyesore along the Little Miami River, but the EPA cleanup project got underway in 2015 and, by 2017, was completed. In 2018, the EPA removed a 14-acre portion of the site from Superfund status and now, it seems, the future is bright for the old plant, as it will take on a new life as Cartridge Brewing.
According to the new business’s website, a full-service kitchen and a 15bbl brewhouse will be dedicated to a variety of taproom beers and a selection of special bottle releases, and “Cartridge Brewing will help restore the Peters Cartridge Factory to its former glory as a gathering place for the Kings Mills community in 2019.”
The property, which was most recently sold to developers in 2014 for a mere $500,000, will also be home to a $25 million development that will include apartments, parking, and shops … and, let’s just be honest … probably still ghosts. I mean, look at this place.