Any BITOG members ever work in a factory or manufacturing plant that’s now abandoned or defunct ?

[Dave Hess]

Any BITOG members ever work in a factory or manufacturing facility that’s now abandoned or defunct ?

I always liked looking at photos of abandoned factories and manufacturing facilities and imagine how busy it must have been 25, 50, 70 years ago. I would love to go back in time and tour the inside while it was still producing things.

Where did you work and did you revisit factory / plant after it sat abandoned many years later ?

Let’s keep politics out of this.

Index of Locations

Dedicated to telling the stories of the faded empire of Michigan through its ruins and remote, forgotten places. With attitude, of course.

www.nailhed.com

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[blufeb95]

My grandfather worked at Delo-Remy in Anderson, Indiana, I think they've tore out pretty much all the buildings except plant 18 right along Scatterfield Rd.(the main drag through Anderson's commercial districts). It's humorous the site that formerly was plant 11, I believe now has a Ford dealership on it.

 

[01rangerxl]

No, but interesting thread idea.

Growing up in NC, I remember hearing about the closing of textile plants being a big thing. It was a major industry until the 70s-90s depending on the area, and the closing of these places would kill towns. It didn't really impact where I lived, but an hour or two away it was a big deal.

Here in AL it's steel. Sloss furnace has become a historical/entertainment spot, but there's a lot of abandoned stuff here that is still untouched. Nothing like Detroit, but still mind blowing when you think about how it looked 50-60+ years ago.

 

[Ihatetochangeoil]

Yes, more than one place in St. Louis MO. In the early 1980's, I worked at a foundry right off I-44 and Kingshighway as a "maintenance welder." Basically anything that those idiots broke I was expected to put back together. Place closed in about 1985 or so and sat for many years. The blast furnace was torn down, the real estate cleaned up & the building eventually became a machine shop which is in operation today.

 

[Cujet]

Kind of, I worked as a tech (assembled engines, timed camshafts precisely for emissions testing and installed assembled engines on dyno) for a racing company that did contract dyno testing for Ford and Ford Motorsport product development. It was a large industrial building, in an old WW-II industrial center that was mostly empty back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. There was always a handful of engineers and a few techs buzzing around and a pallets of engines and parts. I believe the place was abandoned after we left. I remember a nearby industrial welding shop lost their owner in a drunk driving accident and they closed down too. I'll have to see if I can remember how to drive there and look on Google Earth to see if it's been torn down.

 

[FordMan59]

I left a facility that molded/painted auto bumpers and fiberglass front end components in 1984 after working for 2 different companies in the same building over a period of 6.5 years . The last company I worked for sold out a few years later and I think it completely closed down in the late '80's or early 90's. Both of the first two companies with many of the same management personal got into financial trouble and if the third company kept the same management I suspect that's why they closed. I rode by there a few years ago and the building wasn't being used and to my knowledge still isn't. There's an old hospital building here in Russellville, KY that's been empty since either the late '70's or early '80's and looks terrible now with probably at least half of the windows broken out.

 

[mrsilv04]

For a couple of years, Dad was an electrician in a GM foundry in Danville (Tilton), IL. It closed in 1995.

He'll admit that he fit in badly. He didn't drink coffee, he didn't go to the bar with the guys and drink beer at the end of the shift, and he didn't play cards.

 

[simple_gifts]

Worked at the Dunham Bush plant in West Hartford CT for two years. The world headquarters was there also. My father was an engineer there and they hired family members to help in the plant renovation; this was about 1986; I drove by recently and the plant had been demolished and carried away; The HQ building is a different company. DB still has operations in FL but mostly overseas. My father raised a family on being a "regular engineer" in the 1960s, 70's and 80s. It was kind of a gut punch really.

He was involved in the large screw compressors for industrial refrigeration.

DB

 

[Spector]

Yep, teenager in college, summer job was in a textile mill in MA before the entire industry moved south. This was in the late 1960s. Still empty I believe. The machines I ran were 10-15 yards long, big suckers and dangerous as well.

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

Through a temporary service, I worked briefly at a Timken plant that made bearings for trains. I was on a cleanup crew during a one or two week shutdown. I mostly remember scraping rubber from forklift tires off the floors, and looking at materials in the various stages of machining and assembly. Just looked it up, and the plant appears to have closed in 2001.
Timken Columbus

 

[billt460]

I worked for 16 years for a large die cast mold shop in the Chicago area, (1972 to 1988), that went under. Third generation family owned company, that the kids took over, and basically ran it into the ground. I also worked for McCulloch Corp. from 1992 until 1997. They were headed for extinction, but didn't lock the doors until 2000. They were a victim of NAFTA. Built a huge plant in Hermosillo, Mexico they couldn't get to run, and lost their biggest contracts, (Home Depot and Wal-Mart), due to poor quality. They died shortly thereafter.

 

[Dave Hess]

Did you look on Google maps to see what happened to the property ?


There was someone last week that mentioned they worked in a steel mill while in college and it got me thinking about starting this thread. I looked for the steel mill on Google and it’s long gone, only a small paragraph of the defunct company on Wikipedia.

Im sure the Rust Belt has lots of manufacturing facilities that would be interesting to explore.

 

[blufeb95]

My other grandfather worked for American Lawn Mower making manual push mowers, the place had a fire about 20 years ago, I think they cleaned up some of the rubble but 20 years later I think it's still mostly there and just overgrown.

 

[blufeb95]

They tore out the rest of the standing building in the last few years, but the rubble still remains from the fire, 20 years ago.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

While I was in college I worked at a metal fab company. I ran a 100 ton press along with another fellow in a consecutive die stamping operation. We worked second and third shifts. Pay was great for guy who needed every dollar for tuition. It also reinforced me mentally to stay in school until I finished.

This is one of my favorite videos on You Tube.

Watch closely where the frames are being riveted together, before the days of electric bead welding. Whenever I watch this video, I cannot help to think of how many of the souls doing this hard work are no longer with us. Also, I also reflect on the many of the "days before OSHA scenes".

 

[Badgerstate]

Any BITOG members ever work in a factory or manufacturing facility that’s now abandoned or defunct ?

I always liked looking at photos of abandoned factories and manufacturing facilities and imagine how busy it must have been 25, 50, 70 years ago. I would love to go back in time and tour the inside while it was still producing things.

Where did you work and did you revisit factory / plant after it sat abandoned many years later ?

Let’s keep politics out of this.

Index of Locations

Dedicated to telling the stories of the faded empire of Michigan through its ruins and remote, forgotten places. With attitude, of course.

www.nailhed.com

.

I briefly worked in the GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. I was never able to return and check it out before it was knocked down a number of years ago though.
Its probably a good thing that I couldnt. That whole deal still fills me with anger and sadness, with how GM handled that whole situation and treated both the workers and the city of Janesville. Its one of the many reasons why I will never own a GM product.

 

[walterjay]

One summer break in high school I worked at a manufacturing facility that made raised flooring for IBM main frame machines. It was assembly line. My job was to install two rubber edge strips on the piece that was being made. I don't know when they died but it is no longer in existence.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Remington Arms in Ilion, NY.

However, I believe another firm is going to be starting up manufacturing there again.

 

[Dinoburner]

From 1959 to 1962 worked for Kingsbury Davis in a machine shop that made box making machines such as shoe boxes. Also made parts for older machines. I ran a Clearman drill, a turret lathe and several other machines. When the second layoff due to obsolete technology happened I was gone. The factory was converted to manufacture fiberglass tubs for maybe 20 years and after that the buildings were razed and condos went up. Location was opposite the Hopkinton NH fairgrounds.

 

[ChiTDI]

Saw five steel plants close, IH closed, Pullman train cars, Stockyards, others too numerous to remember.
I worked on the railroad and we served all those industries with raw materials and delivered their finished product.
During the Viet Nam War, the sky in South Chicago glowed orange all night. When the dawn broke, the shift changed and the summer Harley lineup at the bars seemed endless.