1870

Eight years after BASF is founded in Germany, the first United States-based office opens on March 10, 1873, located on Duane Street in New York City. This sales= office was formed through a limited partnership with the firm Pickhardt & Kuttroff (later Badische Company), headed by Adolf Kuttroff (pictured). In its first year, Pickhardt & Kuttroff had sales equaling $167,822. The U.S.-based sales office was the second foreign sales office for BASF. The first one was in Milan, Italy.
_{Photo courtesy of the Chemical Heritage Foundation.}

Sales of BASF products in Mexico are handled by Carlos Felix and account for 0.3 percent of total worldwide sales.

BASF presents an exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. BASF representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Brazil exhibited the entire range of artificial organic dyes in addition to explaining the coal-tar dye process and displaying an oil painting of the manufacturing site in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

BASF Director Bernhard Timm is invited by Dow Chemical Company to tour several of its sites, including Freeport, Texas, and its headquarters in Midland, Michigan. This visit laid the groundwork for a second visit in 1957 in which a Dow-BASF joint venture was discussed and ultimately founded as Dow Badische Chemical Company.

BASF merges with five German chemical companies, creating
IG Farben. In North America, this merger created General
Dyestuff Corporation. In 1945, IG Farben was dissolved and BASF was reestablished in 1952.

BASF and Dow Chemical Company jointly found the Dow Badische Chemical Company in Freeport, Texas, with an initial goal of producing basic chemicals and fiber preliminary products. Construction started on the Freeport site with an original investment of $7 million. The site was BASF’s first manufacturing site outside of Germany since World War II.