After 200 years, Remington leaves his hometown and leaves behind a working-class village with bleak prospects.

Remington started here, in Ilium two centuries ago. Generations of workers made rifles and shotguns at the huge firearms factory in the center of this working-class town in the heart of New York’s Mohawk Valley.

Now the inhabitants of Ilion prepare for Remington’s departureending an era that began when Eliphalet Remington forged its first rifle barrel close in 1816.

The country’s oldest weapons manufacturer recently announced plans to do so close the factory at the company’s original headquarters early next month, citing the high management costs of the historic plant. Remington is consolidating its operations in Georgia, a state the company says, it’s friendlier for the firearms industry.

The recent history of the company has been marked by a lawsuit after the Sandy Hook school massacre AND bankruptcy declarations which led to the new ownership of the Ilion plant, where the workforce has been reduced from approximately 1,300 employees more than ten years ago around 300.

But the measure still hurts the municipality of 7,600 inhabitantsWhich they face the prospect of a dramatic loss of income and an empty factory and expand.

“When Remington leaves, it won’t be like a facility leaving, It will be like a part of your family is gone.” said Jim Conover, who began working at Remington in 1964 packing guns and retired 40 years later as a manufacturing manager.

The manufacture of weapons dominates and defines Ilium. It is intertwined with the city in the same way that auto manufacturing is with Detroit.

Mayor John Stephens meets with village council members under a seal depicting Eliphalet Remington holding a long gun. The four-story brick factory Located between Armory Street and Remington Avenue, it looms over the community about 90 kilometers east of Syracuse.

Everyone I know someone who worked at the plant. For some families, work is practically a birthright. Conover’s father and sons also worked at the plant. Kiln operator and technician Frank “Rusty” Brown was still there this year with members of his family.

“My mother worked there. My father worked there. My wife works there with me now. My daughter works there with me now. My second daughter works there with me now. And my son-in-law works there,” said Brown, president of Local 717 of the United Mine Workers of America union. “AS It’s a double whammy for my wife and me.: two of us without work”.

The fault lies with the current owners of Remington Firearms, RemArms to “production inefficiencies” for closing the plant in a Nov. 30 letter to union officials. They cited the high costs of maintaining and securing approximately 92,903 square feet of space in multiple buildings, many of which They date back to the First World War.

RemArms added that Georgia offered an environment that “better supports and embraces the arms industry of fire”.

CEO Ken D’Arcy also said in a press release that the industry is concerned the “legislative context” of New York.

Some believe Remington is moving mostly south to reduce operating and labor costs.

But in an area of ​​New York state where support for gun rights tends to be strong, some Republican elected officials seized on the company’s comment about Georgia. They linked the plant closure to gun control measures supported by New York-area Democrats in recent years.

Remington isn’t the first firearms manufacturer to commit to a more gun-friendly state.

Smith & Wesson has opened its new headquarters in Tennessee in October after having been based in Springfield, Massachusetts, since 1852. By announcing the move in 2021, company officials cThey criticized the state legislation proposal which, as they said, it would prohibit them from producing certain weapons.

RemArms, which bought the firearms business in 2020, did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment.

The company said in its letter to the union that it hopes to end operations at the plant. around March 4th. The company previously announced in 2021 that it would move its headquarters to LaGrange, Georgia, and open a factory and research operation there.

Gone are the days of afternoon traffic jams in Ilion, when the daily shifts ran out. THE empty spaces They dominate the large factory car park. Nearby businesses that deliver lunch to the establishment, such as Franco’s Pizza, They have already seen orders drop dramatically.

“They’re down,” said Franco’s owner, Daniel Mendez. “This won’t necessarily bankrupt us, but it hurts.”

With a fraction of its previous workforce, Remington leaves Ilion with more of a whimper than a bang.

A city, without a clear destiny

Stephens believes the remaining workers will be able to find other work in the area. But he also estimates that losing the plant could cost the city dearly almost a million dollars a yearincluding payments for utilities and taxes.

Local officials hope the plant site will accommodate a mix of production, commercial and residential units. But his fate remains unclear. It was put up for sale last month for $10 million.

“Things can get fast into a monstrosity” said Michael Disotelle, historian at the Ilion Public Library. “And being so in the center of town, you can’t walk past it.”

The current factory site dates to 1828, when Eliphalet Remington located his operations along the newly opened Erie Canal. Although pistols have historically been Ilion’s primary product, Remington It also produced typewriters, sewing machines and other items. of consumption.

Cerberus Capital Management purchased Remington Arms in 2007, putting it in the same corporate family as Bushmaster Firearms and other gun companies. Bushmaster Firearms moved its manufacturing operations to Ilion for a time in 2011.

Remington Outdoor Co. and its subsidiaries They filed for bankruptcy in 2018, citing declining sales and legal and financial pressures after the Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six adults. In the massacre, a Bushmaster AR-15 style rifle.