The Factory

In a small town called Sunbury Ohio there is a building that sits empty, and partly destroyed.  When someone walks by this building they don’t appreciate that this building was once a thriving factory that provided jobs and other benefits to the community.  This old building is the former Nestle Factory, and it plays a critical role in the history of the small town of Sunbury.

The factory was built in the late 1800’s and sold to the Nestle company in 1919.  Nestle used this factory to create butter, cheese, and evaporated milk.  The factory would eventually become known for a specialty product it made, instant coffee and instant tea.  The factory was actually the first Nestle factory to make an instant tea product known as Nestea, a product still sold today.  The factory continued it’s growth, including a 27 million five story addition in 1981, to perform an additional function of decaffeinating coffee beans.  However the good times would come to an end.  In 1993 the factory closed it’s doors as Nestle deemed their decaff coffee was no longer popular.  With the closing of the factory, Nestle took with it its many jobs it provided for the community and its large income tax for the community.

The factory is now partly torn down  and other than one small steel manufacturing plant, sits empty.  The factory leaving had left a huge hole in the village of Sunbury as many people where now out of a job and many businesses started to suffer.  It took Sunbury a while to recover from this, but from the ashes the phoenix will rise.  Sunbury is now a thriving community once again, and is still expanding.  The addition of an outlet mall, and several new schools, Sunbury’s population and businesses are on the rise.  Yet the factory still sits there like a scar on the community.  But all that can change.

The plot where the factory sits is in a great location.  It’s right by the Sunbury square, which is really the life of Sunbury and its very close to the middle school, high school, and several elementary schools.  An apartment complex built on the lot would make perfect sense.  Sunbury’s current problem is the population continues to expand, and they are running out of homes, an apartment complex would help that problem.  Sunbury also doesn’t have a lot of apartment buildings within the city.  It really only has one, and the rest are houses that are probably out of many peoples price range who might want to move to Sunbury.  An apartment complex would bring more teachers, police, firefighters, and many other crucial jobs that are necessary for a growing community.  With the addition of new businesses to Sunbury, finding the funds for the creation of this building wouldn’t be difficult.  The building will need fixed up a lot too, as many of it fell apart as it was not properly maintained.

An apartment complex on this location would also be somewhat poetic.  The disfigured empty factory is a painful reminder of the rough stretch Sunbury had when it closed its doors.  Especially it being so recent that many adult residents of the town remember the time when it used to be open.  But Sunbury bounced back and building this apartment complex would show how far the town and community have come since then, and showcase that Midwesterner never die spirit that Sunbury has.

Source: http://bigwalnuthistory.org/Local_History/Creameries/Nestles/Nestle.htm