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Make a right, crossing over the river on the H. Julius Smith Bridge. You’ll see a large shopping center to your right, called Pompton Lakes Towne Square. The documented history of the site of this development begins shortly before the establishment of the municipal government of Pompton Lakes Borough in 1895, with the arrival of the man who became the namesake of the bridge you just crossed. The residence of H. Julius Smith was recorded in the vicinity of Pompton Township in the 1880 Census. Smith held the patents for the blasting machine, the cartoonishly boxy device with a vertical lever used for detonating explosives.

By 1886, he had purchased the property standing before you from the Blauvelt family, containing a gristmill and its dam along the Wanaque River. Here, he reinforced the structure to provide power for his factory, called Smith Electric Fuze Company, and named the shallow backwater it created after his daughter, thereafter known as Lake Inez. Smith was responsible for the arrival of electricity in Pompton, providing for the operation of lighting at the railroad depot by 1894. A number of other industries arose in proximity to the dam, including a silk mill, bleachery, and general store. The next year saw these new taxpayers band together to form their own government as the Borough of Pompton Lakes, of which Smith was elected mayor. It was during his second term that he died in 1901, having established a reputation for the flourishing town as a center of munitions manufacturing. Smith’s industries passed into the hands of his son Amasa, who became general manager of the plant by the time DuPont acquired it in 1905, making it a part of the future combined Pompton Lakes Works. I will call this part of the plant the Fuze Works.

Page 6 of “H. Julius Smith, Pompton Lakes Industrial Pioneer,” by H. E. Allen and F.J. Talasco, published in the North Jersey Highlander

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To access the remaining structures of the Fuze Works, make a right before the Starbucks on the sidewalk, which parallels the parking lot of the shopping center. The river will be visible to your right, and you should be walking north, opposite the direction of its flow. The sidewalk will continue behind the shopping center, where it connects to the Pompton Lakes Senior Housing development on Hunter Place. Walk past this building and you should see fencing behind a retaining wall to your left, next to a red shed. On the right will be a low swing gate across a wide woods road. Follow this path until you see the fence straight ahead. The river should be close on your right, and the fence can again be walked around close to the shoreline.

Continue straight on the path, and soon you will cross a break in the forest at a power cut. Directly ahead of this will be yet another fence, this one with a gap the whole width of the road on which you’re walking. Still, it features a sign so rusted as to be nearly illegible, containing only fragments of words that can be inferred to read “PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING – E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY.”