Ever since Frank G. Schenuit opened his Double Grip tire factory in 1925, his name has been associated with a campus of industrial Woodberry buildings.

Though the rubber works closed decades ago, he left a lasting legacy when he had his name spelled out in bricks on the plant’s landmark chimney.

The interior of the plant he built, a place that turned out thousands of aircraft tires during World War II, was largely destroyed by a fire Thursday night.

While other of Woodberry’s industrial buildings have been converted to other uses, the old Schenuit property failed over the years to become apartments or a restaurant.

The Schenuit story began in 1912, when, as a young man, Frank Schenuit started making tires for racing motorcycles.

Schenuit had a tire shop at 1200 Mount Royal Ave. at Dolphin Street, just opposite Mount Royal Station. His original sales operation later became an artist supply store that was patronized by Maryland Institute College of Art students.

In 1921, after selling tires and auto accessories, Schenuit patented a non-skid pneumatic tire he called the Double Grip.

According to Baltimore Sun articles, he wanted to make his own tires, and by 1925 Baltimore’s Mayor Howard Jackson as well as officials of the old State Roads Commission and the Maryland Motor Vehicles Commission were admiring Schenuit’s new Woodberry plant.

He bought a former Woodberry cotton mill, a gray fieldstone structure built in the 1840s that once made the heavy cotton duck used in ship’s sails.

The Sun’s account of the tire plant opening described the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tracks that ran alongside the building, making it easy to ship in raw materials and ship out tires. “Two huge steam boilers, of 210 horsepower, deliver the steam for the curing process,” The Sun reported, adding that the water for the steam came from the adjoining Jones Falls.

The plant initially employed 100, but that changed as Schenuit’s sales increased.

He was forced to rebuild his whole operation in late 1929 after a major fire destroyed the plant. The Sun said that the flames were visible all over the city and that 10,000 people assembled to observe the blaze.

The brick structure that burned this week was the 1930 building that replaced the old fieldstone mill.

Schenuit advertised “direct factory prices” and pledged that “every Schenuit tire is made in Baltimore,” urging his customers to “patronize local industry and help Baltimore prosper.”

The plant went into overdrive during World War II, as did other foundries and industries along the Jones Falls Valley. Schenuit complained to news reporters that while engaged in defense work — making military aircraft tires — his workforce was forced to shut down one night in 1943 during a test blackout.

An air raid warden arrived at his plant’s front entrance and ordered everyone out. Schenuit protested and called the Northern police station, then on Keswick Road in Hampden.

He was told, “Sorry, we can’t help you. It’s the law,” according to news accounts.

He didn’t give up easily that night. He showed a reporter how the Mount Vernon Woodberry mills (which turned out military canvas) were not forced to shut down, while Poole Engineering and Balmar, then secretly engaged in parts of the Manhattan Project, were forced to close down temporarily.

Schenuit vowed to put his workers on double-time the next Sunday to recover the lost production.

Toward the end of the war, he supervised another extension of his plant to keep up with demand.

The plant was then running three shifts a day and had the biggest backlog of orders in its history.

The demand did not last. Sales plummeted after the war.

Schenuit, who lived in a brick Charles Street mansion in Guilford, died in March 1948. He is buried in New Cathedral Cemetery.

His family continued operating the business through the end of the 1970s.

jacques.kelly@baltsun.com