Before Southwire, it was Coleman Cable and before that, the manufacturing plant just off Tusquittee Road was American Components Inc. The Pennsylvania based company, ACI served Clay County many years and brought a multitude of jobs that had not been previously available. Southwire is closing its doors in March, but the building where it was housed and the start of the manufacturing industry is part of Clay County’s history. Here’s an excerpt from the June 7, 2018 edition of the Progress:
Charles Wellard had been granted a patent for a revolutionary new electrical resistor and other related products in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, when American Components Incorporated was located in Conshohocken, Penn. He didn’t realize that by doing so he would eventually be bringing hundreds of jobs to a poor mountain town that was in desperate need of them.
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s Hayesville was well on its way to transitioning from a mainly farming community to an industrial one. “That’s why it was so important. The governor got industry here. People were leaving the farms and needed jobs — men and women,” said Herman Swanson was one of American Components’ long-time workers.
The governor at the time was James Holshouser and in an effort to bring prosperity to the long neglected mountain communities, he started actively recruiting manufacturing companies to come to the area. He dangled the ever-popular tax credits in front of them and they came in droves, much to the benefit of the people.
In addition to the myriad of sewing factories that moved into the area, ACI decided to move here as well. When Clifton Precision, the company that Wellard left to start his own venture, moved here it proved there was a workforce that could sustain such technical work. Bud Cherry, long-time ACI employee said, “They knew that there was a ready workforce that could work on these small components.”
It wasn’t long before they had established a factory in the side of the square that now houses Edward Jones and Fine Construction, among others.
It seems implausible that the building could house a factory, but it did. Interestingly, it also housed the offices of “Doc” Staton and several apartments, one where key ACI employee Howard Mazza lived until his wife Sandy moved to be with him. Sandy was the long-time assistant principal of Hayesville High School.
Mazza, along with Wellard and Walt Douglas relocated to Hayesville in 1966 to open the plant. That first year they only employed a few workers but the plant grew with each passing year, putting more and more local people to work. They eventually outgrew their facility on the square and broke ground on their new manufacturing building which is now occupied by Southwire which is closing its doors at the end of March.