Styrofoam Was Invented in Midland (and What You Call 'Styrofoam' Probably Isn't)

Here’s a two-for-one Michigan fact. First: that famous foam was invented by a Michigan company. Second: most of the stuff you call “styrofoam” isn’t actually Styrofoam at all.

The company is Dow, founded in Midland, Michigan, in 1897 by Herbert Henry Dow, who figured out a clever way to pull valuable chemicals like bromine out of the underground brine beneath the town. Dow grew into a chemical giant, and in 1941 its researchers in Midland invented a closed-cell foam — extruded polystyrene — that the company trademarked as Styrofoam. During World War II its buoyancy made it useful in rafts and lifeboats.

Now the fun part: “Styrofoam” is specifically Dow’s brand of that dense, usually blue board used for building insulation and crafts. The white coffee cups, coolers, and packing materials everybody calls “styrofoam”? Those are a different product (expanded polystyrene). So technically, you’ve probably never actually held a piece of real Styrofoam.

Dow’s Midland labs were an idea factory. The same company gave the world Saran (the basis of the old Saran Wrap), Styron plastics, and a long list of materials. More than a century after Herbert Dow started tinkering with brine, the company he founded is still headquartered in Midland — a reminder that Michigan’s industrial genius wasn’t only about cars.