Lockheed comes to Fayette County
Local editorials from 50 years ago are being reprinted every Monday and Tuesday in this column. This editorial appeared in the Evening Standard, a predecessor of the 蘑菇视频, on June 19, 1967.
Production employees at the new Lockheed-Georgia Co. aircraft plant started to work yesterday.
It’s something new for Fayette County — an industry whose major product at the present is for the defense industry.
The Uniontown Lockheed plant will construct sub-assemblies for the new C-5 jet cargo transport for the U. S. Air Force. Lockheed has a $2-billion contract for this super plane.
Doors, beams, side panels, escape hatches and other such materials will be constructed in the Uniontown plant from parts and materials sent here from Georgia and California. The sub-assemblies will then he transported to the main Lockheed plant at Marietta, Ga., where the C-5 will be assembled.
Construction for the new 67,000-square-foot plant started last year. It is on an eight-acre site along a road just off Route 119, near the Fruehauf trailer facility. There are an additional 3,000 square feet of space for offices in the handsome building.
Robert Smith, the plant manager, says that all the help will be hired locally with the exception of about 10 supervisory personnel who would be brought here. However, promotions would be made as the new employees learn their jobs. It is the same procedure installed by other new industries locating here.
Production is on a small scale at the present, with only 15 production men employed. Eventually it is hoped 150 production personnel will be working in the plant.
It is another national industrial firm that we hope will have the same industrial success of previous companies and corporations which liked what this section had to offer and built plants here.
We welcome Lockheed-Georgia to Uniontown.