An Economic Base Study of Paris, Illinois Charles E
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 1966 An Economic Base Study of Paris, Illinois Charles E. Womack Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in Geography at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Womack, Charles E., "An Economic Base Study of Paris, Illinois" (1966). Masters Theses. 4255. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/4255 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN ECONOMIC BASE STUDY OF PARIS, ILLINOIS (TITLE) BY Charles E. Womack THESIS SUBMIITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATIO N IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 1966YEAR I HEREBY RECOMMEND THIS THESIS BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE GRADUATE DEGREE CITED iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The following acknowledgements are made to those individuals whose assistance and guidance made this thesis possible. I especially wish to thank Dr. Dalias A. Price , my graduate advisor, for his guidance, assistance and untiring patience through my graduate career; and to thank Dr. Glen McConkey and Dr. Hiram Thut , as members of my graduate committee . I wish to acknowledge the numerous individuals of Paris who gave willingly of their time and knowledge to furnish me with valuable material used in this thesis. Finally, I wish to acknowledge Miss Kay Jackman, for proof reading and typing the thesis. August 1, 1966 Charles E. Womack AN ECOMOMIC BASE STUDY OF PARIS, ILLINOIS Acknowledgements iii List of Illustrations iv Chapter I. Statement of Problems and Objectives ••••••••• ••••1 II. Manufacturing That Provides the Basic Economy of Paris, Illinois . 3 A. The Top Six B. Medium Sized City Builders C. Small City Builders III. Supplements to the Non-basic Economy of Paris, Illinois •••39 A. Services 1. Divisions of Highways District Off ice 5 2. Paris Community Hospital 3. Paris Clinic 4. Central Illinois Public Service s. General Telephone 6. New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad 7. Paris Beacon News 8. County Seat 9. Lodging 10. Finance 11. Entertainment 12. Other B. Trade IV. Factors in the Development of Paris, Illinois ••••••••53 A. �istorical Deve lopment B. Locational Factors V. Summary and Conclusions •••••••••••••••••••62 Bibliography Appendix iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 2-1 Paris labor force. 5 2-2 Paris labor force distribution. 5 2-3 One of the buildings of the Stewart Hog Ring Company. 10 2-4 The U. O. Colson Company. 13 2-5 The Zenith Radio Corporation and her daughter pl�nts of the world. 16 2-6 The Central Electronics Plant (Zenith Radio Corporation). 18 2-7 The Corn Belt of the United States. 20 2-8 The Illinois Cereal Mil ls, Inc. 22 2-9 The new water purification plant being built for the Illinois Cereal Mills. 24 2-10 The Midwe st Body Manufacturing Company. 26 2-11 The Bastian Blessing Company. 27 2-12 The Meco , Incorporated. 29 2-13 The Windbreaker-Danville Company. 32 2-14 The Lusterlite Incorporated. 34 2-15 The Goding Shoe Company. 35 3- 1 Employment by types of services. 40 3-2 The Paris Community Primary Hospital service area of 32 , 000 people. 43 3- 3 The CIPS service area in East Central Illinois. 45 3-4 The Paris Railroad System. 47 - 2 - Figure Page 4- 1 Relative location of Paris with large midwestern cities. 56 4-2 Land use of Paris. 58 4-3 Population growth of Paris. 59 4-4 Increase in population growth of Paris. 59 4-5 Family incomes of Paris. 60 4-6 Land usage of Paris. 61 CHAPTER I STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS AND OBJECTIVES One field of study within the large field of Geography is the economy of a given region. In this case the area was narrowed down to one particular city in east-central Illinois--Paris, Illinois. The next step after choosing the city, which is interesting because of its high amount of industry in comparison to its size, was to conduct an economic base study of the city. To investigate the economy one must analyze all the money producing activities of the town. This thesis on the economic base of Paris is an attempt to find out the effects of the economic activities of Paris and to analyze future trends for Paris. To do this certain questions arise, such as : What effect does industry have on Paris, Illinois, and the surrounding region? What is the employment structure of the city? How do the transportation lines affect the economy? What effect does the relative location of Paris to several large cities and the corn be lt play on the economy? Does the large group of semi-skilled labor and women affect the type of industries that come to Paris? Do favorable low taxes and real estate costs pull subsidiary plants from large cities for assemblage purposes? What effect does Paris acting as the county seat of Edgar· County, Illinois, have on the economy of the city? In general, how do the people of Paris make a living? These are the questions whose answers will be sought in the pages to follow. l ·· - 2 - Since the author is an employee of the Paris School Board and since he is a geographer, interest arose in the city and its economy and a desire to answer the above questions came about. The main approach to answers to the questions was by personal interviews with owners or managers of the major industries, station masters at the railroad stations, managers of the utility companies , manager of the hospital, and several top job holders in the District Highway Office. Other material was collected from the public library, the chamber of commerce, the tax accessor's records, several offices in the Edgar County Court House, and by asking citizens and laborers of Paris for information. Many books and pamphlets were also pursued. Through the above methods data were collected for use in analyzing the economic base of Paris. To aid the reader gain a better knowledge of the industries of Paris presented in this paper, the author is presenting photographs of the major industrial plants. Maps of Paris and its relative location are presented. Many charts and tables are used to analyze the material. CHAPTER II MANUFACTURING THAT PROVIDES THE BASIC ECONOMY OF PARIS, ILLINOIS Manufacturing is extremely important to the basic economy of many towns. The basic economy is gained by money being brought into a town from outside sources, such as basic manufacturing or trade. The money brought into Paris comes from the goods produced in the town or from the services provided within the town. In order for a town to grow it must sell its basic goods and services. These goods, which furnish the "plus dollars" of Paris , can be brought in by industrial firms selling outside the Paris area. Paris, Illinois, and the Chamber of Commerce, have actively enticed several industrial firms to establish in the Paris area over the past 70 years. The extra available jobs brought people to Paris and increased the population from 5,000 in 1890 to almost 10,000 in 1966 and the number of jobs in manufacturing increased from less than a hundred to almost 2,500. The terms "city bui lders" and "city fillers" will appear throughout this paper. l A "city builder" produces a product to be sold outside the Paris market area and thus brings in outside dollars to the community. As the non-local market is served, 1 The terms "city builders" and "city fillers" carry the same terminology as the terms "basic" and "non-basic" manufacturers used by John W. Alexander in many of his publications. The terms have been used with success by both Mr. Alexander of the University of Wisconsin and Dr. Dalias A. Price of Eastern Illinois University. - 3- -4- money is brought into the Paris community for the purposes of building, expansion, city taxes, and payroll and is the basis of the economic base. If it were not for the city builders the city would not have any noticeab le amount of money coming into the city and its economy would be based only on the city fillers. The city builders comprise Paris's basic support. By contrast, the city fillers, such as neighborhood grocery stores or drug stores, are secondary activities dependent upon funds brought in by the city builders. This group just keeps the money circulating around in the city and if the city builders left, the city fillers would be adversely affected and diminish in number. The city's total labor force at the present time cons ists of 2,612 males and 1,300 females for a total of 3,912. (Fig. 2-1) Of this number only 281 are unemployed, leaving 3,631 jobs being filled in Paris. Of these 3,631 jobs, 2,360 are filled by the top ten city builders with another 91 jobs being provided by the six city builder manufacturing firms with less than fifty people employed. Approximately 1,200 people are employed by the city fillers or about one out of every three jobs are filled by the city fillers.l (Fig. 2-2) This is unusual as most towns of Paris's size have more city filler than city builders jobs. The city builders bring in money from outside the Paris area and can be placed into the three fo llowing groups according to the number employed : (a) the "Top Six", each of which provide 175 or more basic job s; (b) the four medium-sized companies that lthe total labor force of Paris is 65 percent city bui lders and 35 per cent city fillers.