Original Item: Only One Available. Now this is a lovely small sign that was once displayed on a building or facility for the Lake Erie Chemical Company in Cleveland, Ohio. The sign states a warning that the “Property is protected by Chemical Warfare Gas.” Nearly all of the original paint and details are still present with a chunk of paint missing at the n in Warning, and some staining across as shown, though this could likely be cleaned.

After the First World War, chemical weapons manufacturers looked to law enforcement as a new market for their wares. Writing in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology in 1935, Seth Wiard explained that research and development of chemical warfare munitions had shifted to weapons designed for use against “civilians under conditions where only temporary blocking of their activities would be required, rather than the permanent removal of such civilians from the scene of action.” In other words, police needed weapons that would neutralize strikers and protesters without killing them.

Seth Wiard was the Technical Director of the Lake Erie Chemical Company. Even though it appeared in a scholarly publication, his article was part of an aggressive marketing campaign to sell police departments on the idea that tear and nauseating gasses were effective alternatives to clubs and guns for quelling strikes and riots. Lake Erie and its competitor in the tear gas business, Federal Laboratories Inc., were already making handsome profits selling their wares in Latin America. One salesman confessed that “the unsettled conditions in South America has been a great thing for me … we are certainly in one hell of a business where a fellow has to wish for trouble to make a living.” The wave of labor unrest in depression-era North America represented a potentially lucrative peacetime market for chemical weapons and the Vancouver Police Department was the first in Canada to oblige.

From what we could find about this company is that they mostly specialized in the manufacture of tear gas weapons such as grenades/canisters and their respective launching systems.

The signs measures approximately 6 ¼” x 4 ⅛” and displays the following message:

Warning
This property is protected by
CHEMICAL
WARFARE GAS
The Lake Erie Chemical CO.
Cleveland, Ohio

A wonderful piece of American history that would fit in with any non-lethal ordnance collections. Comes more than ready for further research and display.