OTTAWA, Ill. -- The state finally is cleaning up 'Death City,' where for 50 years small-town girls died of cancer after painting luminous numbers on watch dials with radium-based paint.
Last week the $2 million cleanup began when workers hauled more than 50 containers of contaminated rubble from the downtown Luminous Processes Inc. plant for shipment to a nuclear waste dump at Hanford, Wash.
The plant, a brick building with the warning 'Dial Illinois for Death' painted in black on its facade, was closed by government order in 1978 because of excessive levels of radiation.
Lawyers say the closing was too late for many members of the 'Society of the Living Dead,' as the watch-painters were referred to in national headlines. At home, people just called them 'the girls' - 40 of whom died of tumors and cancers during a 50-year span.
James Thomas, mayor for 17 years, said the women died of radium poisoning from exposure at the plant, or its forerunner, the Radium Dial Co., located four blocks away.
Others lived -- with difficulty.
Pearl Schott, 66, contracted breast cancer in 1964, has had reproductive organs removed, and has a lot of trouble with her feet and bones. She worked 32 years at Luminous Processes, starting at 40 cents an hour.
Mrs. Schott remembers the stifling summer days when fans swirled radium-filled dust through the plant.
'We were often told to be careful with the material because it was very expensive, but never to be careful because it was very dangerous,' Mrs. Schott said.
Douglas F. Stevenson, an attorney representing the defunct company, said he could not comment because the statute of limitations on damages arising from possible radium poisoning is 20 years. He said old cases may be refiled and new cases filed until that limit runs out.
The company was known as Radium Dial when it was housed in an old school building between 1920 and 1937. The women there were instructed to dip fine-tipped paint brushes in water, twirl the brushes between their lips to make a point, and dip them into a luminous radium powder.
Luminous Processes was warned several times to clean up the radiation. It was fined $3,200 in 1977 and closed the following year.
Numerous lawsuits have been filed by former workers.
Peter Ferracuti, a lawyer for many of the plaintiffs, said a survey of death certificates of 100 deceased employees of Luminous Processes and Radium Dials showed more than half of them suffered cancer.
'The national average is something like 13 percent to 16 percent,' he said. 'You can see we have a disproportionate situation here.'
Civic leaders of this placid town of 20,000 people 80 miles west of Chicago complain they have suffered unfairly from publicity.
Thomas said he was grateful for the cleanup because 'I hate to have someone look at this as 'Death City.''
