Economy
Mansfield's greatest period of industrial development led by the city's stove manufacturing industries, including Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the Tappan Stove Company. By the late 1920s, Westinghouse had become the city's largest employer, specializing in electric lighting, industrial heating and engineering, and home appliances.
However, like many cities in the rust belt region of the Midwest, Mansfield saw a large decline in its manufacturing and retail sectors. Beginning with the steel Recession of the 1970s, the loss of jobs to overseas manufacturing, prolonged labor disputes, and deteriorating factory facilities all contributed to heavy industry leaving the area. Mansfield Tire & Rubber Company, Ohio Brass Company, Westinghouse, Tappan and many other manufacturing plants were either bought-out, relocated or closed, leaving only the AK Steel Plant in Mansfield and the General Motors Fisher Body Stamping Plant (Mansfield-Ontario Metal Center) in neighboring Ontario as the last two remaining heavy industry employers. The AK Steel Mansfield Works production facility, formerly Armco Steel, was the location of a violent 3-year United Steelworkers Union lock-out and strike from 1999 to 2002. On June 1, 2009, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced that its Ontario stamping plant (Mansfield-Ontario Metal Center) would close in June 2010.
With the loss of the jobs, locally owned businesses in downtown Mansfield closed, as did much of the retail built in the 1960s along Park Avenue West (formerly known as "The Miracle Mile") and Lexington Avenue. New big-box retail, shopping strips and franchise restaurants have been built in the adjacent suburban city of Ontario, which has replaced Mansfield as the retail hub for Richland County and north-central Ohio.
The city has a sought to diversify its economy to become less dependent on its struggling manufacturing sector. Remaining manufacturers in Mansfield include steel manufacturer AK Steel, Honda Supplier Newman Technology Incorporated, generator manufacturer Hyundai Ideal Electric Company, thermostats manufacturer Therm-O-Disc, pumps manufacturer The Gorman-Rupp Company, plumbing manufacturer Crane Plumbing, carousel manufacturer The Carousel Works, and Mansfield Engineered Components, a designer and manufacturer of motion control components for the appliance, transportation, medical casegoods and general industrial markets. Mansfield's healthcare industry includes MedCentral Health System, the city's largest employer and the largest in Richland County. The hospital is the city's primary provider of health care and serves as the major regional trauma center for north-central Ohio.
Mansfield is also home of three well-known food companies. Isaly Dairy Company (AKA Isaly's) was a chain of family-owned dairies and restaurants started by William Isaly in the early 1900s until the 1970s, famous for creating the Klondike Bar ice cream treat, popularized by the slogan "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?". Stewart's Restaurants is a chain of root beer stands started by Frank Stewart in 1924, famous for their Stewart's Fountain Classics line of premium beverages now sold worldwide. The Jones Potato Chip Company, started by Frederick W. Jones in 1945 and famous for their Jones Marcelled Potato Chips, is headquartered in Mansfield.
Read more about this topic: Mansfield, Ohio
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.”
—Anthony, Sir Eden (1897–1977)