Fleetwood Plant to Reopen in Lafayette, Tennessee

In recent years, the city of Lafayette, Tennessee, and the surrounding areas have seen the closure of many of the factories that the modest community was dependant on for their survival.

There were once many factories in the area, but over the years most of them have either closed out completely or moved their operations to other areas where they felt they could be more prosperous. As the plants closed, people migrated to the other factories that remained in the area, and some of the last plants in the area close to Lafayette were the ones owned by Fleetwood.

So, when Fleetwood began closing the plants that it had in the are many people were extremely hard hit with the closure of the Fleetwood plants in a neighboring town of Westmoreland, Tennessee, and then subsequently the closing of the Lafayette plant. As one of the few factories in the area that offered good wages along with a benefits package, many families were left struggling when the actual closures took place. While most in the community managed to struggle through, for many it has been just that, struggling through. So, the announcement on Friday that the Fleetwood plant in Lafayette, Tennessee, would reopen its doors this December and offer about 100 jobs to the community was welcomed by all.

Most see this as a sign that what was once a prospering town, with new businesses and factories vying for a place there is going to see an economic resurgence in growth. This is especially welcome news to the community, which was hit hard by drought over the course of the summer months this year. The community as a whole is a farming community, so most of the people there work in a factory by day, and supplement their income by the farming that they do at night and on weekends. So, the closing of many local factories, followed closely by the worst drought to hit the area in years, has caused many people to lose hope that there would ever be a successful resolution to their economic problems.

As the months continued, the hope in the community for a good wage and benefits package at a factory within their home town seemed to be an increasingly difficult dream to sustain. The jobs just weren't there. The small resurgence seen when Nestle Waters opened a factory in Red Boiling Springs, which is located in Macon County, just outside of Lafayette had brought some hope to residents, but that hope too was fading. So, the announcement of the reopening of the Fleetwood plant has given residents of the small town new hope, and hopefully is the economic break through that this small community has been searching for!