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As the 1950s, the first full decade since the end of World War II, were coming to a close, the United States was still trying to assemble the pieces of a peacetime economy. Some of the pieces fit, some didn't. But it was increasingly clear that the nation was on the brink of boom times. Returning war veterans, many with newly established households and newly acquired college degrees gained through the GI Bill, were recognizing the needs of their growing families. They were ready to go where the jobs were. States and communities were beginning to compete with one another to attract job-producing industries. And government officials, at various levels, were waking up to this competition and wondering whether they could help. It was within this setting that a group of farsighted citizens were asking what could be done to assure that Lancaster County didn't lose out to other areas of the country. Already in place was the Industrial Development Bureau of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce. It had been effective within the limits of its charter. What was needed now was an organization that could spread its wings over a wider area, one that could work full-time at assuring Lancaster County's ability to attract desirable new jobs to the area and to retain those already here. In August 1960 came the answer: the establishment of the Industrial Development Company of Lancaster County. After that, the status would never again be quo! The founders of the Industrial Development Company were J. F. Aierstock, Kendig C. Bare,I. Z. Buckwalter, H. Clay Burkholder, G. H. Effing, A. Hugh Forster, David E. Good, Henry F. Huth, Edward J. Kessler, A. Kenneth Mann, Jr., Gerald L. Molloy, William Shand, Robert R. Shoemaker, J. Hale Steinman, and G. T. Storb. Under the leadership of Shand, selected as their first president, these charter members had plenty of ideas to work with, and they wasted little time putting them into effect. First they needed seed money, and this they gathered by asking community-minded businesses and individuals for loans that eventually would total about $200,000. (These loans, which carried modest interest rates of 5 percent, were redeemed in the mid-1970s.) Once the seed money was in hand, the founders went to work. Because in the 1960s private investors were showing little interest in the development of industrial parks in Lancaster County, the Industrial Development Company undertook its first major investment: over a period of three years it acquired about 150 acres of prime industrial land in East and West Hempfield Townships, about four miles west of the City of Lancaster. This would become the site of the Lancaster-Hempfield Industrial Park, which in the spring of 1964 was dedicated by local civic and public officials. The Industrial Development Company was also instrumental in arranging for the Centerville Road interchange to be added to Route 30, so the new industrial park could be provided with better access. Allied Mills, Inc., of Chicago, was the first industry to select a location in the new park. Its new plant, on a six-acre portion of the property, was set up to process and distribute animal and poultry feeds. To attract other industrial tenants, John H. Wickersham Engineering & Construction, Inc., was commissioned to erect a 30,000-square-foot "shell building" in the park. It offered two walls, a concrete floor, a roof, and nothing more. This innovative approach was designed to provide a quick start to a manufacturer that wanted a building quickly, with provisions to complete or expand the shell building to that manufacturer's own special needs. Later in the 1960s, the Industrial Development Company purchased from the U.S. Government, for $1.9 million, about 250 acres of the former Marietta Air Force Depot, in an economically depressed area of western Lancaster County. Armstrong Cork Company (now known as Armstrong World Industries, Inc.) leased this property, later purchasing it. In 1967 Armstrong turned a portion of the site into a manufacturing plant for carpet products, which at its peak would provide employment for about 800 men and women.

 

Address: Southern Market Center, 100 South Queen Street, P.O. Box 1558, Lancaster, PA 17608-1558.
Telephone: 717-397-4046
Fax: 717-293-3159
Website: http://edclancaster.com/