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Tagged: company towns

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Changing Gears
11:26 am
Fri July 29, 2011

Road Trip: Orrville, more than a company town (Part 5)

Credit Dan Bobkoff / Changing Gears
John Schmid vice president of Smith Dairy in Orrville, OH. The family adopted the business name Smith before World War I—a time when the German-sounding Schmid was not an asset.
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Our Changing Gears team has been on the road this week traveling to some of our company towns in the Midwest.

Changing Gears is a Michigan Radio project looking at the economic transformation of the industrial Midwest.

Our final stop is Orrville, Ohio: A place that seems like a company town, but there’s long been a whole lot more going on in Orrville.

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Changing Gears
10:16 am
Thu July 28, 2011

Road Trip: Norwalk saves its company (Part 4)

Credit Dan Bobkoff / Changing Gears
Saving Norwalk Furniture means about 150 locals have jobs again.
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When a company bears the name of its hometown, it can be hard to separate the two. Such is the case with Norwalk Furniture and the town of Norwalk in Northern Ohio. Sue Lesch is the town’s mayor.

“It really is our flagship company,” said Sue Lesch, Norwalk’s mayor. “It’s the company we’re proud of. We’re known for furniture all over the country.”

For more than a hundred years, Norwalk Furniture made custom-order sofas and chairs in its Ohio factory. For a long time, it was the biggest business in town, employing about 700 in this town of 17,000.

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Changing Gears
8:00 am
Wed July 27, 2011

Ishpeming: Where iron ore built a city (Part 3 - with photos)

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Photo courtesy of Cliffs Natural Resources
The Empire Pit began production in 1963.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Lee Woods of Northern Tire. The vehicle that uses this tire can haul 320 tons of iron ore.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Each of these tires costs about $50,000 - Lee Woods of Northern Tire.
Credit Photo courtesy of Cliffs Natural Resources
The Empire Mine has produced more than 250 million tons.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Sandra Sundquist sells 800 to 900 pairs of steel boots a year.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
The iron ore is pulverized and turned into higher grade pellets.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Dale Hemmila says North American steel begins here.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Ishpeming is a city built on iron ore.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
City Manager Jered Ottenwess says diversification is key.
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Our Changing Gears project is on the road, bringing you stories of towns where one company still affects everybody’s lives. Today we head north, to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. That’s where North America’s biggest supplier of iron ore has been blasting the earth, and creating jobs, for more than 160 years. 

Our destination is the city of Ishpeming. It’s small.  Basically, you can’t throw a rock here without hitting a miner.

Take Steve Carlson. After high school, he worked 37 years for the mines.

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