About General Cable Corporation St. Louis Missouri
General Cable Corporation was founded in 1927 through mergers of major wire and cable manufacturers, including General Electric’s wire operations and Sprague Electric. By the 1950s through 1980s, it ranked among the largest wire and cable manufacturers in the United States, operating in markets where asbestos exposure has driven substantial litigation recoveries. The St. Louis area facility served as a regional manufacturing hub, reportedly employing 300 to 500 production workers, maintenance tradespeople, and support staff from the 1940s through the 1990s, with peak employment in the 1960s and 1970s.
The facility produced building wire and electrical cable for residential and commercial construction, including asbestos-insulated variants for high-temperature applications; industrial power cables for manufacturing, mining, and utility infrastructure; telecommunications wire and cable for telephone and data systems; automotive wire harnesses for vehicle manufacturers, including heat-resistant variants; and specialty high-temperature wire for industrial and aerospace applications, specifically utilizing asbestos insulation.
Wire and cable manufacturing at General Cable’s St. Louis operations created multiple, overlapping asbestos exposure pathways. The facility allegedly contained asbestos in four major categories: high-temperature manufacturing equipment — furnaces, ovens, process piping, and steam lines insulated with calcium silicate insulation and asbestos block insulation; the wire and cable products themselves — asbestos fiber used directly as insulation on electrical wire and cable for high-temperature applications; facility infrastructure — building materials including joint compound, wallboard, Pabco roofing materials, and mechanical equipment containing asbestos throughout the plant; and maintenance and repair activities — decades of disturbance of installed asbestos materials including gaskets and packing, pipe covering and insulation, and boiler insulation during ongoing plant operations.
General Equipment at General Cable Corporation St. Louis Missouri
The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.
Documented Asbestos Evidence
The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (Missouri DNR) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.
Material Categories in Documented Records
The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:
Who May Have Been Exposed at General Cable Corporation St. Louis Missouri
Production Line Workers on wire drawing, insulation application, and cable assembly operations may have been exposed to asbestos through three main pathways: direct asbestos-insulated wire production where workers handled raw asbestos fiber, operated braiding machines that wrapped asbestos around wire conductors, and applied asbestos-based insulation compounds; proximity to high-temperature equipment where heat-treating ovens and annealing furnaces lined with calcium silicate insulation, asbestos block, and asbestos-reinforced refractory materials operated continuously; and handling finished asbestos-insulated product during inspection, bundling, and packaging.
Maintenance and Mechanical Trades Workers — members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis, MO) and Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 (St. Louis, MO) — faced the most concentrated exposures through removing and replacing calcium silicate insulation on steam lines and process piping through cutting, fitting, and scraping operations; cutting and fitting asbestos gasket material on flanges, valves, and heat exchangers without respiratory protection; repairing and replacing asbestos-lined furnace doors; disturbing boiler room insulation during maintenance and renovations; and handling expansion joint materials, asbestos rope, and compressed asbestos sheet products during equipment repair.
Support Staff — custodial, warehouse, and administrative workers — not directly involved in production or maintenance still breathed ambient asbestos from asbestos-containing building materials throughout the facility including joint compound, Pabco roofing, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, and spray-applied fireproofing; disturbance of building materials during routine cleaning and facility maintenance; and proximity to active asbestos work during Local 1 and Local 562 maintenance operations. Spouses and children of General Cable workers — particularly families of maintenance workers and boilermakers — faced secondary exposure through workers carrying asbestos fibers home on clothing, with exposure spreading through direct skin contact, fiber transfer to furniture and household surfaces, and fiber release during washing and handling of contaminated work clothes.
Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Missouri law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 5 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 3 years from the date of death (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.100). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.
The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.
Practical first steps
- Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
- Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
- Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
- Speak with an asbestos attorney with Missouri experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.
Asbestos-Related Diseases
Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.
Mesothelioma
A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.
Asbestosis
A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.
Lung Cancer
Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.
Other Recognized Diseases
Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.
If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.
Data Sources
Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:
- EPA ECHO Facility Compliance Database — enforcement and compliance records for industrial facilities
- OSHA Establishment Search — federal workplace inspection history
- EIA Form 860 Plant Data — power-plant equipment and ownership records (where applicable)
- Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) NESHAP asbestos abatement notification records
- Published asbestos trial and trust fund records (publicly filed court documents)
- AsbestosIndex Product & Manufacturer Crosswalk — historical asbestos-containing product schedules linked to manufacturers
If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.