List of company towns in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of company towns in the United States.

For a more comprehensive list, see List of company towns.

Towns listed in bold are still considered company towns today; other entries are former company towns. See the Category:Company towns in the United States for an unannotated list of articles.

Listed by state[]

Alabama[]

Arizona[]

  • Ajo, Arizona, owned by Phelps Dodge
  • Bagdad, Arizona, owned by Freeport McMoRan (formerly Phelps Dodge)
  • Clarkdale, Arizona, built, named for, and formerly owned by Senator William A. Clark's
  • , built by Kennecott Mining Company in 1958
  • Morenci, Arizona, owned by Freeport McMoRan (formerly Phelps Dodge)

California[]

Colorado[]

  • Climax, Colorado, built by the Climax Molybdenum Company, The residential houses were all transported to the West Park subdivision of Leadville, Colorado, before 1965, leaving only the mining buildings standing.
  • Durango, Colorado, organized in 1880 by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad
  • Gilman, Colorado, built around (and eventually abandoned due to) the New Jersey Zinc Company's Eagle mine
  • Ludlow, Colorado, was dominated by Colorado Fuel and Iron
  • Portland, Colorado, built by the Ideal Cement Company

Connecticut[]

Florida[]

  • Lake Buena Vista, Bay Lake, and the Reedy Creek Improvement District located within Walt Disney World Resort, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company
  • Ybor City, built by Vicente Martinez Ybor for his cigar manufacturing businesses; now one of Tampa's top night spots

Hawaii[]

Idaho[]

Illinois[]

  • Granite City, Illinois, built by St. Louis Stamping Company, a steel company known for its "Granite ware" in which cooking utensils were made to look like granite
  • Hegewisch, Chicago, founded by Adolph Hegewisch (President of the United States Rolling Stock Company) to emulate the company town of Pullman.
  • Pullman, Chicago, once an independent city within Illinois, owned by the Pullman Sleeping Car Co.
  • Naplate, built and formerly owned by the National Plate Glass Co.
  • Steger, Illinois, built and formerly owned by Steger and Sons Piano.

Iowa[]

  • Buxton, a camp of the Consolidation Coal Company, abandoned.
  • Cleveland, a camp of the Whitebreast Coal and Mining Company, outside Lucas, abandoned.
  • Everist, a camp of the Mammoth Vein Coal Company (later, the Empire Coal Company), abandoned.
  • Muchakinock, a coal camp of the Consolidation Coal Company, abandoned.
  • Newton, where the well-known Maytag company closed down in 2006.
  • Numa and its abandoned suburb Martinstown, former home of the Numa Block Coal Company.
  • , south of Colfax camp of the Colfax Consolidated Coal Company, abandoned.
  • Stone City, a town built by local limestone quarry businesses. Today an unincorporated community.

Indiana[]

  • Gary, Indiana, built and formerly owned by U.S. Steel[9]
  • Marktown, built for the Mark Manufacturing Company in East Chicago
  • Sunnyside, built and formerly owned by Inland Steel in East Chicago

Kentucky[]

  • Barthell, built by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company in 1902.
  • Benham, built and formerly owned by International Harvester.
  • Blackey, built and formerly owned by Blackey Coal Company.
  • Blue Heron, ghost town built by Stearns Coal and Lumber Company.
  • David, built and formerly owned by Princess Elkhorn Coal Company.
  • Fleming-Neon, built and formerly owned by Elkhorn Coal Corporation.
  • Highsplint, built and formerly owned by High Splint Coal Company.
  • Jenkins, built and formerly owned by Consolidation Coal Company.
  • Lynch, built and formerly owned by U.S. Steel.
  • Midway, built and laid out by Lexington and Ohio Railroad in 1830.
  • Seco, built and formerly owned by South Eastern Coal Company.
  • Stearns, built by Stearns Coal and Lumber Company.
  • Stone, built and formerly owned by Pond Creek Coal Company. It was also owned by Fordson Coal Company and Eastern Coal Company.
  • Thealka, built and formerly owned by North East Coal Company.
  • Van Lear, built and formerly owned by Consolidation Coal Company.
  • Wayland, built and formerly owned by Elk Horn Coal Company.
  • Wheelwright, built and formerly owned by Elk Horn Coal Company.

Louisiana[]

Maine[]

Massachusetts[]

  • Hopedale, Massachusetts, former home of the Draper Corporation, textile machine manufacturer.
  • North Dighton, Massachusetts, former textile mill town, greatly expanded during the 1910s–1920s.
  • Southbridge, Massachusetts, former mill town, known for the home of American Optical Company.
  • Whitinsville, Massachusetts, former home of Whitin Machine Works, textile machine manufacturer.

Michigan[]

  • Alberta, Michigan, started by Henry Ford
  • Gwinn, Michigan, owned by Cleveland Cliffs Iron, nicknamed the "Model Town", because CCI intended its layout to be a model for all of their other company towns
  • Hermansville, Michigan, started by the Wisconsin Land & Lumber Company

Minnesota[]

Mississippi[]

Missouri[]

Montana[]

  • Colstrip, Montana, a coal strip mining town formerly owned by Montana Power Company
  • Trident, Montana, a former Portland cement company town owned by Holcim

Nevada[]

  • Boulder City, Nevada, built and formerly owned by the United States Bureau of Reclamation
  • Empire, Nevada, owned by USG Corporation

New Hampshire[]

  • Berlin, New Hampshire, residential development for wood products manufacturing by Berlin Mills Company
  • Harrisville, New Hampshire, historic textile mill village; National Historic Landmark

New Jersey[]

  • Haskell, New Jersey, named for Laflin & Rand company president Jonathan Haskell
  • Manville, New Jersey, the largest tract of land was the Johns Manville Corporation
  • Maurer, Perth Amboy built by brick manufacturer after the Civil War and later absorbed into Perth Amboy
  • Roebling, New Jersey, a factory village within the limits of Florence, New Jersey; the town was owned by the Roebling Steel Corporation run by the descendants of John A. Roebling

New Mexico[]

  • Madrid, New Mexico, residential development for miners of the Albuquerque and Cerrillos Coal Company[18]
  • Playas, New Mexico, built by Phelps Dodge Corporation

New York[]

North Carolina[]

Ohio[]

Oklahoma[]

Oregon[]

Pennsylvania[]

  • Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, former home of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company
  • Braddock, Pennsylvania, dominated by Carnegie Steel Company and later by U.S. Steel
  • Buck Run, Pennsylvania, built by James B. Neale between 1902 and 1943 for his anthracite coal miners and their families. By 1925, his company town boasted of a school, an infirmary, a community recreation facility, a company store and several churches in addition to homes for the miners with running water, electricity and steam heat. The Buck Run colliery was located outside of Pottsville, in Schuylkill County.
  • Ford City, Pennsylvania, organized in 1887 by PPG Industries
  • Hershey, Pennsylvania, built by Hershey Chocolate Corporation [9][24]
  • Kistler, Pennsylvania, built by the Mount Union Refractories Company in 1918, designed by John Nolen
  • , a now defunct coal mining town in Venango Township, Northern Butler County
  • Lawrence Park Township, Pennsylvania, built by General Electric Company in 1919
  • Natrona, Pennsylvania, built by the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company in the 1850s with later additions
  • Peale, Pennsylvania (1883–1912)
  • Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, founded by John A. Roebling and other German immigrants it was the site of his first wire works in the United States (see also Roebling, New Jersey)
  • Claghorn, Vintondale, and Wehrum, Pennsylvania, built by the Lackawanna Coal Company
  • Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, a borough formed by the Westinghouse Air Brake Company
  • Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, established by George McCurtry, President of Apollo Iron and Steel Company

Rhode Island[]

South Carolina[]

South Dakota[]

Tennessee[]

  • Alcoa, Tennessee, formerly owned by Alcoa and still economically dominated by the company
  • Coalmont, Tennessee, operated by the Sewanee Coal, Coke and Land Company
  • Norris, Tennessee, built and formerly owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority
  • Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built in secret by the United States government for the Manhattan Project; controlled by the federal government until 1959
  • Old Hickory, Tennessee, built to house DuPont employees; now a suburb of Nashville

Texas[]

  • Camden, Texas, owned by the and its successors
  • Sugar Land, Texas, once owned and run by the Imperial Sugar Company, transformed into an upscale suburb of Houston
  • Thurber, Texas, owned by a coal-mining subsidiary of the Texas and Pacific Railway

Utah[]

Vermont[]

  • Proctor, Vermont, once owned by the ; the town of Proctor was under the control of Senator Redfield Proctor

Virginia[]

  • Bacova, Virginia, created by the Tidewater Lumber Company. The name Bacova was selected by the company as shorthand for Bath County, Va.
  • Saltville, Virginia, dominated by Mathieson Alkali Works and its successors through the Olin Corporation
  • Stanleytown, Virginia was dominated by Stanley Furniture

Washington[]

  • Alpine, Washington, owned by Alpine Lumber Company
  • , owned by Kent Lumber Company, bought in 1911 by Seattle City Light, razed in 1924
  • Black Diamond, Washington, owned by the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company, sold to the Pacific Coast Company in 1904
  • Bodie, Washington, and its related Bodie Mine controlled by the
  • Coulee Dam, Washington was originally two adjacent company towns created in 1933 to support the construction of Grand Coulee Dam – Mason City, owned by lead construction contractor Consolidated Builders Inc., and Engineers' Town, owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. CBI transferred control of Mason City to Reclamation in 1942. Reclamation then combined Engineers' Town and Mason City into Coulee Dam in 1948, began selling the town to its inhabitants in 1957, and completed the divestiture in 1959, when Coulee Dam officially incorporated as a town.
  • Diablo, Washington is a running settlement in unincorporated Whatcom County, it was created by Seattle City Light in 1930
  • Dupont, Washington, provided housing to workers at a dynamite factory on the waterfront operated by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.
  • Holden, Washington, built by the , which also owned Britannia Beach; once the most productive copper mine in the U.S., the mine closed in 1957 and it and the townsite were sold to a unit of the Lutheran church for $1 in the 1950s; now run as a Christian retreat center
  • Hooper, Washington, owned by the McGregor Land and Livestock Company
  • Longview, Washington, established in 1921 by the Long-Bell Lumber Company and led by Robert A. Long the lumber baron from Kansas.
  • Newhalem, Washington, owned by Seattle City Light, as is nearby Diablo
  • Port Gamble, Washington, still owned by but the lumber mill has not operated since the mid-1990s
  • Roche Harbor, Washington, formerly supporting lime kilns owned by
  • Ruston, Washington, established by industrialist William Rust; the town's primary industry was an ASARCO copper smelting plant
  • Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, established by Weyerhaeuser. It was abandoned on an unknown date.

West Virginia[]

Wisconsin[]

Wyoming[]

  • Bairoil, Wyoming became a company town supported by Amoco
  • Jeffrey City, Wyoming was built in the 1950s to house employees of nearby Western Nuclear uranium mining and milling operations. Other uranium mining companies built housing adjacent to the town to take advantage of its location and infrastructure. The townsite was sold off in an auction in the 1990s.
  • was composed of several mining companies' towns, the largest of which was owned by Lucky Mc Uranium.
  • Shirley Basin, Wyoming was another uranium mining company town owned by Utah Construction and Mining's uranium operations.
  • Table Rock, Wyoming was built in the 1970s to support the nearby Colorado Interstate Gas processing plant.
  • Wright, Wyoming was built by ARCO in the 1970s to support its Black Thunder Coal Mine. Wright incorporated in 1985

References[]

  1. ^ Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946).
  2. ^ Carranco, Redwood Lumber, pp. 163, 166 & 202
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Carranco, Lynwood (1982). Redwood Lumber Industry. San Marino, California: Golden West Books. p. 207. ISBN 0-87095-084-3.
  4. ^ Carranco, Redwood Lumber, pp. 200–203
  5. ^ Carranco, Redwood Lumber, p. 203
  6. ^ Berry, Swift (1957). "Michigan-California Lumber Company". The Western Railroader. Francis A. Guido. 21 (218): 7–12.
  7. ^ Carranco, Redwood Lumber, p. 145
  8. ^ Carranco, Lynwood (1982). Redwood Lumber Industry. Golden West Books. p. 209. ISBN 0-87095-084-3.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b (2010). The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-01826-2.
  10. ^ Wight, D.B. (1971). The Wild River Wilderness. Courier Printing Company.
  11. ^ Angier, Jerry; Cleaves, Herb (1986). Bangor and Aroostook. Flying Yankee Enterprises. pp. 4–5. ISBN 0-9615574-2-7.
  12. ^ Bangor and Aroostook p. 24
  13. ^ Melvin, George F. (2010). Bangor and Aroostook in Color, Volume Two. Morning Sun Books. p. 29. ISBN 1-58248-285-3.
  14. ^ Dole, Samuel Thomas Windham in the Past (1916)
  15. ^ Jennifer Stowell-Norris, The History of Strathglass Park
  16. ^ The Bankston Textile Mill Retrieved 2014-03-31
  17. ^ Electric Mills Archived 2014-01-06 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2014-03-31
  18. ^ Myrick, David F. (1970). New Mexico's Railroads. Colorado Railroad Museum. pp. 138–9.
  19. ^ "History of Austin Powder Company". Reference for Business. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  20. ^ Burba, Howard (5 March 1933). "Remember When the Powder Mills Exploded?". Dayton Daily News.
  21. ^ Sullebarger Associates, PAST Architects. "Ahimaaz King House and Carriage House Historic Structure Report" (PDF). Deerfield Township, Ohio. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 June 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  22. ^ "History of Wright City". Oklahoma Historical Association. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  23. ^ McArthur, Lewis A.; McArthur, Lewis L. (2003) [1928]. Oregon Geographic Names (7th ed.). Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0875952772.
  24. ^ "Monuments to power". The Economist. 2010-10-14. Retrieved 2010-10-19. But many other towns were monuments to the Utopian spirit. Benevolent bosses such as Milton Hershey, a chocolate king, and Henry Kaiser, a shipping magnate, went out of their way to provide their workers not just with decent houses but with schools, libraries and hospitals. ... Gary, Indiana, one of US Steel’s proudest creations, now suffers from one of the highest murder rates in the country.

Further reading[]

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