First opening its doors in 1923, the General Motors Norwood Assembly plant in Norwood, Ohio, eventually shut down in 1987 after 67 years in operation. Now, more than three decades after the plant was officially closed, former employees discuss the effect that the plant’s closure had on them and the surrounding community.
In a recent report from local news source Spectrum News 1, former General Motors employees Dan Wall, Dan Edwards, and Don Kissenger talked about their time at the plant, and what it was like the day it was announced it would close.
“The plant manager called everybody into the train, well, which was a big area in the plant where we could gather,” Dan Wall said. “He swept it all up and we came down there for the bad news and he announced the plant was gonna close.”
The General Motors Norwood plant’s closure left some 4,200 employees out of work. At that time, the facility represented over a third of Norwood’s tax base. Norwood was one of 10 GM plants to close in ’87.
“Plants were closing, production was shrinking, volumes were down,” Wall said.
At the time, many locals feared that the plant’s closure would precede the demise of the city as a whole. However, the city of Norwood would later sue General Motors, claiming an implied contract between the automaker and the city that was breached when the facility was shut down. General Motors eventually razed the Norwood facility, and by late 1989, the property was ready for redevelopment, eventually transforming into a business and shopping district.
However, for Wall, the new development is unfamiliar. “Oh, it’s nothing like it used to be,” Wall said. “It’s so quiet.”
Nevertheless, for these former employees, the pride of building vehicles like the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird shows every time one of these classic muscle cars is found on the street. If Dan Edwards spots one, he has to check the VIN to see where it was made.
“If you see that N, that means the car was manufactured in Norwood,” Edwards said.
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Comments
And so began the downsizing, and the GM gypsies. Of which I’m one.
I remember as a boy from Amelia, Ohio in the 1950’s going to my Grandmothers house in Heartwell and we would have to pass the Norwood plant. In August and September they would hang canvas curtains on the tall chainlink fencing to shield the public from seeing the new models, but my Dad would always stop so we could find a gap in the curtains and take a sneak preview of the acres of new unreleased models inside the storage lot. I would get butterflies every time. Great memories.
I know in the Detroit/Flint area so many of these plants were literally in neighborhoods so it was easy to see the new model year cars months before they hit the dealerships. The new plants are build like fortresses and the new stock is well hidden from view.
My ’86 Z28, which I bought new, still own, and is still all-original other than maintenance items over the years, came out of Norwood. F-body production continued at the Van Nuys assembly plant until 1992, when GM discontinued the Camaro/Firebird carlines, and that plant was also shut down.
They ended production of the 3rd gen but they didn’t discontinue the Camaro/Firebird, the 4th gen was made in St.Therese Qubec from 1993-2001.
I lived in Norwood for 30 years and had a small business in Norwood for 35 years. Right across the street from my business was the lot where they stored and loaded the Camaro’s and Firebirds onto the trucks for shipping. I could look out my window and see thousands of these cars being loaded. I had the pleasure to own both a 1968 Camaro convertible and a 1973 Camaro RS. Some of my fondest memories in those cars.
I had a 77 Trans Am and an 85 both from Norwood.
As a young man I had a new Camaro every year or two due to new powerplants being offered. 83-87 those were the best years of my life and have many memories in my Camaro’s that were probably all built in Norwood due to living in the New England. Thank you Norwood employees
probably gonna happen also Lordstown, Ohio once closed they ain’t coming back
You can say anything about Cali but one of the worse GM decisions was pulling out of California (as well as Georgia and the east coast) in-turn GM lost customers.
So whats the excuse for pretty much every other car company leaving California?
If a state doesn’t want to keep your business there, as California clearly showed, then why keep it there?
Why Kia/Hyundai, Benz, Nissan, Toyota is eating the south alive where GM and Ford was at?. It’s really no reason why GM and Ford isn’t in Atlanta like they were before. Cali is it’s own market, GM should have an SUV plant to replace the F-body instead of shuttering it.
Not to mention Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.
I have a 1969 Z28 Camaro made there. pic of it is here > prnt.sc/uftubx *copy and paste to your browser*
Why Kia/Hyundai, Benz, Nissan, Toyota is eating the south alive where GM and Ford was at?. It’s really no reason why GM and Ford isn’t in Atlanta like they were before. Cali is it’s own market, GM should have an SUV plant to replace the F-body instead of shuttering it.
My sympathies to you. Some were not treated too well at their new plants.
I still own my first new car, a black 1977 1/2 Camaro Z28 that was built in Norwood. I special ordered it at the dealership I worked at. It’s all original except for maintenance items . Still an awesome car to drive!
I still own my first new car, a black 1977 1/2 Camaro that I special ordered from the Chevy dealer I worked at. It was built at Norwood and is all original except for normal maintenance items. It’s still one awesome car!
GM unexpectedly closed the OKC factory in 2006, after only 25 years of operation. OKC suffered from the 1995 bombing of the federal building by Timothy McVeigh, in 1999 an F4 tornado narrowly missed the Oklahoma GM plant. Hundreds of employees lost their homes, over 40 people were killed. In 2003 the factory had a direct hit from another tornado at the beginning of the second shift. GM spent $700 million updating the factory for the production of the Trailblazer and Envoy XL in 2002. Contractors from all over the world took only 7 weeks to rebuild the damage, it had been estimated to take about 7 months to repair the factory. I doubt GM would have spent that much time and money if we were on the bubble. After all the setbacks we were back at back at full production, until 2005 when GM announced the closure during the week of thanksgiving. Most factory closures take a couple of years, within 90 days we had built our last SUV, ahead of schedule. Despite the adversity we endured as a community, it is difficult to understand why GM chose to close one of their best facilities. That same year several other factories closed in Oklahoma, which made it difficult to find blue collar jobs. After producing 5 million cars in 20 years and winning GMs first JD Powers Gold award in 1992 we became a corporate casualty. We took a lot of pride in our work at OKC, sorry it had to end that way. The county bought the four million sq ft factory for $55 million, the Air Force leases it for $1 a year for maintence of air craft at the nearby air force base.
I used to live three blocks from where the plant used to be. That was 2003 and I found out when I was living there that this Camaro plant used to be there. I drove by the parking structure all the time. Always felt close to Norwood because of this, it reminded me of home in the Detroit area. Same sad story.
Are there any oral histories collected anywhere from the workers at the GM Norwood plant? There were a million stories in that place, and frankly a lot of bad memories. I worked there in quality and tooling from 1982 to 1987.
My father worked at the Norwood, Ohio plant from 1967-!985. He was extremely proud to work for GM and they provided our family with a pretty good life! Thank you Norwood and GM!
are the Norwood Assembly Plant record of operation in 1971
Who was the plant manager at this plant in 1975-1978? I worked at First National Bank of Cincinnati during this time and the then plant manager whose name I can’t remember discussed me coming to Oklahoma to be his executive assistant because he was going to be in charge of opening the new plant there. He was a friend of my boss, Lin Stonecipher, who thought it was a great opportunity and it would have paid me a lot of money. But I would have made more money than my husband which back then would have been an intimidating thing for a man. Not only that, but I found out during that time I was pregnant with my first child and I couldn’t have envisioned moving from Cinti for anything that challenging with a new baby. And then the plant manager was diagnosed with a type of cancer that at the time was basically a death sentence. It’s been so long but the older you get the more you remember this stuff. But not names.