September 2003 The Megaphone Page 6
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Why The Elwood Call-Leader
Thursday, March 6, 1941
Editorial:
Why Elwood Did Not Get Its Naval Ordnance Plant
In recent months, a concentrated effort has been made by business and civic leaders of Elwood to have some type of national defense or government industry locate in or near the city. One is forced to presume that these efforts, despite the sincerity in which they were exerted, have proved of no avail.
From information recently chronicled by Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen of the Washington Merry-Go-Round, citizens of Elwood have now learned that there is a REASON WHY Elwood has not been able to convince either the government or private industry that some type of national defense industry should be located in our midst.
This information was contained in a recent column by Mr. Allen and Mr. Pearson, two ace columnists who seem to know more about what is going on in Indiana that Hoosiers themselves.
According to Pearson and Allen, the strategic plan to scatter defense industries throughout the middle west – where they would be less vulnerable to attack – HAS FALTERED COMPLETELY.
The commission seems to believe that to scatter the new plants away from established production centers would slow up the whole national defense program. Private industry agrees with the commission in that they hope some day to absorb these industries into their own production schemes.
The issue of where national defense industries should be located has, in the report, caused sharp clashes behind closed doors.
“A typical example of the Navy’s attitude,” Say Pearson and Allen, was the case of Elwood, Ind., home town of Wendell Willkie, which has been a ghost city since the big tin mill shut down. Badly, needing a new industry and strategically located, the city did it part toward securing an ordnance factory by getting a low price for the vacant mill.
“So the Navy located its new ordnance plant in Indianapolis where it promptly ran into the irate opposition of the citizenry.”
Our only comment is that Pearson and Allen can hardly appreciate the truth they speak. Although it was off-the-record at the time, a representative of the Navy department who inspected the Elwood site commented that it was-by-far-the best of all potential sites for the proposed naval ordnance plant. The location he said at that time was ideal. Skilled workers were to be had not only from Elwood but also from dozens of surrounding cities of secondary size.
Still, Elwood did not get its national defense industry. Instead, it went to Indianapolis where there is an absolute and acute shortage of skilled workers, and to a community that raised a howl of protest over the location of the plant.
Pearson and Allen are erroneous on only one point. Elwood is not a ghost city and will never become one. It has induced private capital to establish plants here and will continue to do so.
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The Elwood Call-Leader
Monday, November 21, 1988
Over 50
by Bernard J. Shuck
The bubble burst but not the hopes and the future of the men who worked at the factory on No. 9th St. building a plywood glider.
Prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Elwood Industrial Bureau was formed to locate industry here. Membership was $10. Then came this prospect for Elwood to enter the field of aviation. The rumble of war prompted many a venture. Some succeeded and some failed.
The Elwood glider never got off the ground.
Elwood, noted for its skilled men in wood, kitchen cabinets, and trailers, seemed the logical place for this glider experiment.
It was the engineers who laid the plans that failed. Not the employees of the company.
This was back in 1941.
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Researched and submitted by:
Nancy Sumner, Class of ’66 EHS/FHS