Late September 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated communities across Western North Carolina. Quartz mines that supply global semiconductor manufacturers shut down operations as workers faced the loss of homes and the destruction of critical infrastructure. The severe storm, worsened by rising oceanic and atmospheric temperatures, jeopardized the high technology industry and demonstrated its dependence on particular environmental conditions.
Taking Hurricane Helene as its starting point, this paper will reexamine the history of semiconductor manufacturing in the United States to understand what environments made possible the emergence of the electronics and computing industries in the twentieth century. Central to this study is the region of Western North Carolina. In 1957, DuPont proudly announced the construction of a facility solely dedicated to the refinement of high-purity silicon in Brevard, North Carolina. This southern-Appalachian town would supply researchers at Bell Labs with the materials required for emerging electronic devices. In promotional materials, DuPont heralded its facility as the first of its kind. While DuPont’s silicon operation only lasted until 1962, silicon’s sweep across the United States would go unhindered. Picking up silicon’s trace in St. Louis, Missouri and Santa Clara County, California, this paper will reconstruct the networks of suppliers and manufacturers that turned quartz into chips—unearthing the landscapes that made digital worlds possible.