How One Company Built and Destroyed an Entire American City: Springfield, Missouri

How One Company Built and Destroyed an Entire American City: Springfield, Missouri In 1965, every colour television bought in America was made by an American-owned company in a domestic plant. By 1991, Americans were buying 21 million sets a year — and exactly one company still made them here. Zenith. At one plant. In Springfield, Missouri. Zenith announced the Springfield plant in December 1966 and opened it on 20 November 1967 at 2500 East Kearney — the first Zenith plant ever built outside Chicago. It hit its one-millionth colour set in October 1969 and eventually grew past 1.6 million square feet. On 30 October 1991, Zenith announced it was moving assembly to Mexico. The work went to Reynosa. By 1992 it was over, and it remains the largest layoff in Springfield's history. But Springfield was not quite the end of American television — and the plant Zenith closed in Illinois had just been called one of the most profitable parts of the business by an engineering journal. Today the Springfield building is Bass Pro Shops' Sportsman's Park headquarters. Sources in the pinned comment. Part of the CityFall company town series. #Zenith #SpringfieldMissouri #CompanyTown #AmericanManufacturing #RustBelt #MadeInAmerica #BassPro #MelrosePark #IndustrialHistory #UrbanDecline #CityFall #chicago 1. TV-Maker Zenith Will Move Assembly Operations to Mexico — The Washington Post, 30 Oct 1991 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archiv... 2. The Day the U.S. TV Industry Died — IEEE Spectrum (orig. Aug 1988) https://spectrum.ieee.org/zenith-tv 3. No. 6 Zenith closing — Springfield Business Journal https://sbj.net/stories/no-6-zenith-c... 4. Zenith Electronics Corporation — Company History https://www.company-histories.com/Zen... 5. Zenith Electronics — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_...