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Reinvent Greenville?
By Bob Rhoades
Somewhere right after 1950, the City of Greenville sort of started
re-inventing itself from a quiet farming community to the beginning of
an agricultural/industrial community. The first evidence of that
was the south water tower which I can remember seeing rise over the
trees from our Central Avenue home. Soon on the same block, a
second fire station was built and eventually a small park with a wading
pool. Life was grand. Close on the heels of all of this the
Fram Corporation, makers of filters for just about everything opened
its doors and those farm boys and girls had another option, they could
get a job in a factory and get paid a good wage. It appealed to a
lot of people.
A mere 5 years later the Corning Glass Company of Corning, NY arrived
in town and built a glass plant to make head lights for the Guide Lamp
Division of General Motors. In a few short years it became the
largest user of water for the City and the third largest consumer of
natural gas on the DP&L system.
There were some problems associated with all of this. The City of
Greenville faked everyone in the south end of town into believing that
they were better protected now that there was a fire station down
there, including Fram. The truth was there were three trucks
stored there and usually one firefighter. None the less, the fake
out worked and the town prospered. Manpower was never increased.
Tom Hunt and Tom Haworth both bought ground and the cornfields off of
Ohio St. and Russ Rd. were an instant community of brick homes.
Other builders were thriving building custom homes all around
Greenville. Life was good. Greenville had re-invented
itself!
As new people took over the administrative duties of the city, they
began to realize that we couldn’t keep faking out the general public
with false security. In 1963, there were thirteen firefighters
and about that many police officers. You couldn’t call for backup
because there wasn’t any. Personnel strengths in both departments
basically doubled in the next 20 years. As Conrail decided to
discontinue through rail service, the second fire station was closed
and all personnel and equipment began running out of a single
station. It revolutionized firefighting in Greenville.
But public safety wasn’t the only area of improvement. A new
water plant was opened and forward thinking planners boasted that it
could pump double the capacity needed for many years. Operators
at both water and sewage plants were all state certified
operators. The sewage plant was also rebuilt to the new EPA
standards and it complied with all of them. A new city building opened
in February of 1967.
Broadway was eventually rebuilt with new sidewalks, curbs and
lighting. So was Wager Avenue as new business centers started to
pop up out that way. The street department was improved with new
personnel and equipment. Life is still good. Greenville
Technologies came to town; Excello built a new building on Jaysville
St. John’s Rd. Ohio Kal Plastics as well as John Witt built
plastics plants. BASF came to town known then as Inmont.
Permacrete left their old home on Vine St. and moved to the east side
of town in a brand new building. Jack Shrader bought the old
Nestles plant on Vine St. and began recapping giant tires. We did
pretty well for about 40 years or so.
Then bang, while someone was asleep at the wheel, Corning just
disappeared from Greenville. Cadillac Gauge disappeared from
Greenville. Fram started automating their plant and jobs
disappeared from Greenville. American Aggregates was bought by a
company which sure as the world couldn’t have its headquarters in a
Podunk place like Greenville, poof it disappeared taking with it
Greenville Manufacturing. I think you know the rest of the story,
well that part anyway.
So, today the big news is that the city of Greenville is going to lay
off workers. Has anyone considered that we may just be shooting
ourselves in the foot when it comes to redevelopment and the attraction
of any industry to the City? I think that this time when we are
courting new industry, they’ll probably look to see if anyone is in the
fire trucks. They may look to see if law enforcement has a good
response time.
As I said earlier, staffing levels in Police and Fire have not come
quickly. It has taken years to get enough firefighters in the
station to adequately man apparatus. The same is true in the
police department. A few years ago the GPD went through an
accreditation process. That process included a self-assessment,
an on-site assessment and review of practices, bookkeeping and many
other areas. The Fire Department periodically goes through a
similar process from the Insurance Services office. They look at
a lot of things including response, water supply and alarm
dispatching. In each case, manpower per capita of residents and
the area served is a big factor. If and when a company decides to
locate in a town, all of these factors are considered. Depending
on how many eventually get laid off in the service department we’ll
start to see a lower level of service there and probably with that a
gradual falling apart of the infrastructure.
I’ve always been told that history repeats itself. We’ve never
been this low before, so maybe we better take some steps that insure we
are starting the cycle over now instead of letting it go any farther
south. Maybe we need to re-invent ourselves again. Maybe we
need to start looking up the hill and not worrying about how bad it can
get. Stop worrying, it’s bad! There has to be some company
to fill the Corning building with good paying jobs. There has to
be companies to fill the empty lots in our Industrial Park. Maybe
we should get together with Van Wert, Celina, Eaton and Hamilton and
re-invent the US 127 corridors, you remember the main way to Florida
before I-75. It goes from Michigan to Florida. It’s got to
have a better use than the biggest garage sale in the world. It
is one heck of a corridor and we need to get lots of trucks and
tourists back on it. Think RE-INVENT, THINK OUT OF THE BOX: COME UP
WITH A NEW IDEA, RE-TOOL AN OLD IDEA. Build a giant jail, there
doesn’t seem to be a shortage of criminals. As Forrest Gump once
said, “…and that’s all I’ve got to say bout that”.
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