Bentonite Performance Minerals LLC (BPM) began its history in 1928 near Osage, Wyoming as the Kansas City Silica Company, the first modern producer of sodium montmorillonite in Wyoming. BPM, then known as Baroid Division, National Lead Company, (Baroid) purchased the plant and reserves from Kansas City Silica Company in 1936. The purchase of the F. E. Schundler Bentonite Corporation in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, in 1947, initiated the construction of a new processing plant in Colony, Wyoming. Schundler's large reserves of high quality bentonite placed BPM in the enviable position of having excellent quantity and quality