The following Glances at Life article written by Homer Butler in 1974 summarizes the beginnings of the city’s first industrial park development west of North Carbon in 1966, which made further development of the city’s west side beyond the Interstate possible.
From a vantage point on Interstate Route 57 where it traverses Marion, one can look east and west, and view a wide area of development that has taken place during the last eight years. As the eye takes in the commercial, industrial and residential expansion that has occurred in that area, the viewer may not realize that much of it has been possible because of the decision of a retired public utility employee to sell the site of a once prosperous brick manufacturing plant and the foresight of a few Marion boosters that prompted them to buy, in the name of the community.
It was a representative of the Marion Chamber of Commerce who started the wheels rolling, and although they didn’t roll very fast during a period of several years, it was the Chamber of Commerce which guided it into a profitable venture for Marion. In the spring of 1966, George Dodds, a member of the Chamber’s industrial committee went out to talk to Gail Brady, owner of 46 acres of land which included a small lake, a brick home and some other buildings that once had been a brick plan, long since idle.
The former brick plant site lay along North Carbon Street. (The plant went under the company name of Marion Pressed Brick Co.)
Dodds estimated the property worth $70,000 to $80,000. Brady asked $55,000 and he wouldn’t talk to anyone but Dodd’s about selling it.
“I told him that he might find out later it was worth more money,” Dodds recalls, “but he said he would be satisfied with $55,000.
Dodds took an option on the property for the Chamber of Commerce, and the organization began trying to raise the money.
At the time the Chamber was headed by Bill Brown as President. Dodds was a member of the Industrial Committee which was headed by Oscar Schafale as chairman, and included Ollie L. Musgrave, Ora Snider, Frank Makaraskas and Dee L. Rodd.
Lewis Nielson was executive secretary, and upon his shoulders fell the main responsibility of keeping the project alive during a long drive for funds to finance it. The Chamber recently awarded him a certificate of recognition for his service in that endeavor.
By May 26, 1967 public subscription had raised $28,000 of the needed money. It had been contributed in amounts from $5 to $1,000 by individuals, clubs and churches, and business concerns in the Marion area, including $100 each from the Chamber of Commerce in Herrin and Johnston City. Some organizations resorted to house to house canvasses.
With more than half the purchase price in hand in cash, the remainder was obtained on loan from the banks. By that time, the cost of owning the land, including interest and maintenance, was $1,750 a year against an income of $900. For the time being, ownership of property was a losing proposition.
So precarious was the financial situation that Ollie Musgrave who became chairman of the Industrial Committee and later Chamber President, recalls that the Chamber offered to give the interest away if someone would assume the indebtedness.
It was more than four years after the purchase of the Brady property on May 24, 1966 that the first industrial site was sold. The Hulbert Oil & Grease Company bought nine acres as a location for a $300,000 plant in August 1970. Later, Gerald Mullens Construction Co. bought the first of two tracts totaling approximately nine acres more.
In June, 1972 the Todd Commercial Laundry bought 6.1 acres and this year, United Parcel Service bought 6.6 acres for its area headquarters.
These sales exhausted the Chamber’s supply of industrial park land because the other 15 acres of the original purchase had been turned over to the city for a sewage lagoon.
That action represented one of the biggest dividends on the purchase because it made possible the extension of sewer service with the help of the City of Marion to industrial and commercial installations on both sides of I-57.
From the cash derived from the sale of land, the Chamber also contributed $9,000 to the cost of extending city water mains beyond I-57. The extension made water service possible for the construction of the Pepsi Bottling Co. plant and eventually other developments in the area extending as far as the Holiday Inn and including the Town and Country Shopping Center.
Musgrave praises the cooperation which the Chamber received from the City of Marion in joint action to provide utilities and streets for the development of the area.
Under the leadership of James Redden as president, the Chamber is working with city officials who have applied for federal funds to aid in the establishment of another industrial park, having demonstrated what such a reservoir of building sites can do for development of the community.
The latest sales of property on the old brick kiln site reflect the increase of value of the land purchased eight years ago. The $55,000 paid in 1966 was a price of approximately $1,230 an acre. More recent sales have brought an average of $7,460 per acre.
Executive Vice-President Milton Witt points out that the Chamber came out of its once disheartening land deal with $50,000 now in the treasury after giving away 15 acres of land and $9,000 in community development and paying expenses of holding onto the land.
Hundreds of Marion people who once joined the business leaders of the community in helping finance a united effort can find satisfaction in what they can see has developed from the Brady farm.
(Glances at Life, by Homer Butler, published in the Marion Daily Republican, October 16, 1974)