How many of you can remember wearing name badges that look like this?

This badge belonged to Chester Alley, who began work at Murray Ohio in 1956, when the Lawrenceburg plant was first built.

The story of Murray Ohio coming to Lawrenceburg is the story of a community working together for the greater good. According to Cromer Smotherman, Lawrenceburg was the last site that the company was planning to visit on their tour of Tennessee, and most of the executives had already decided to build the new plant in another city in Tennessee.

At the behest of their guide, however, the Murray executives visited Lawrenceburg, and they were impressed not only by the progressive attitude of the elected officials, but by the positive attitudes and friendly dispositions of the people of Lawrence County. The warm welcome they received in Lawrenceburg made them change their minds about building in another city, and so they decided to bring Murray to Lawrenceburg, and changed the history of our area forever.

Making the decision to build the new plant was not as easy as it might seem. The city of Lawrenceburg agreed to pay for the building of the plant, but it did not have the resources on hand to foot the $2 million bill for the massive construction project.

On October 14, 1955, the people of Lawrenceburg went to the polls to vote on whether or not to approve of the issue of $2 million worth of industrial bonds by the city of Lawrenceburg. The measure needed 75% of the vote in order to go into effect.

Needless to say, it was a leap of faith on the part of the citizens of Lawrenceburg. But after a brief and frenzied voter-education campaign on the part of the Chamber of Commerce and local elected officials, the people of the city voted 2,346 to 5 to approve these bonds–although ground had been broken on the site more than a month before, and the people did not yet even know the name of the company!

In addition to building the plant, the city had to deal with the issue of housing the 52 families which had to move to Lawrenceburg from Cleveland to work as supervisors at the new factory. At that time, the city of Lawrenceburg did not have enough rental houses to accommodate those 52 families until they could build or buy homes of their own.

In response to this problem, several local people pitched in and built 25 new brick houses to help house the families from Cleveland.

As a result of these different segments of our community working together, building each other up, and relying on each other’s support, Lawrence County experienced its greatest economic expansion to date. The money brought in by Murray helped to fund a swath of municipal improvement projects, which in turn helped to attract more industry and improve the quality of life for local people like Chester, who–along with his wife Iler Mae–eventually retired from Murray.

If I (Clint Alley) may take a moment to make an editorial comment, I believe that one of the greatest lessons we can learn from the arrival of Murray in Lawrenceburg is that bringing jobs and attracting industry to our area is not just the job of our local elected officials. Improving our community is everyone’s shared responsibility.

You may not be a member of the county commission or the chamber of commerce, but you never know who might be listening when you criticize or belittle Lawrence County, just as you never know who might be listening when you take time to brag on the positives of our community.

Look out for your neighbor. Volunteer your time to help keep our community clean and our children in school and out of trouble. Buy local. Encourage out-of-town friends to visit David Crockett Park or Laurel Hill Lake. Work with local government instead of pulling against it. We all want to live in a place where our children can find work and make a good living. We all want a better community.So let’s start building that community today, one positive action at a time.