Company town Totally Explained

Everything about Company Town totally explained

A company town is a town or city in which all real estate, buildings (both residential and commercial), utilities, hospitals, small businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations, and other necessities or luxuries of life within its borders are owned by a single company.

Overview

Traditional settings for company towns were where extractive industries — coal, metal mines, lumber — had purchased a monopoly franchise. Dam sites and war-industry camps founded other company towns. Since company stores tend to have a monopoly in company towns, it wasn't uncommon for truck systems to emerge in isolated company towns.
Typically, a company town will be isolated from neighbors and centered (figuratively, if not literally) around a large production factory such as a lumber or steel mill or an automobile plant; and the citizens of the town will either work in the factory, work in one of the smaller businesses, or be a family member of someone who does. The company may also operate parks, host cultural events such as concerts, and so on. Needless to say, when the owning company cuts back or goes out of business, the economic effect on the company town is devastating, and often fatal.
Company towns sometimes become regular public cities and towns as they grow. Other times, a town may not officially be a company town, but it may be a town where the majority of citizens are employed by a single company, thus creating a similar situation to a company town (especially in regard to the town's economy).

In the United States

One of the first company towns in the United States was Pullman, Chicago, developed in the 1880s just outside the Chicago city limits. The town, entirely company-owned, provided housing, markets, a library, churches and entertainment for the 6,000 company employees and an equal number of dependents. Employees were required to live in Pullman, despite the fact that cheaper rentals could be found in nearby communities. In 1898 the Illinois Supreme Court required Pullman to dissolve their ownership of the town.
In the present-day United States, it's relatively rare for any place in which a single company owns all the property to be granted status as an incorporated municipality. Rather, companies will normally prefer their wholly owned communities to remain unincorporated as this permits administration of the community to be carried out by appointed company officers rather than elected officials. However, there are incorporated municipalities that are heavily dependent upon a single industry or organization and may be loosely considered a "company town", even though the company doesn't technically own the town. In this vein, Washington, DC is sometimes called "America's biggest company town" because of the federal government's dominance.
A different type of company town has appeared in the U.S. since the 1960s, where real estate companies started developing uninhabited tracts of unincorporated lands into huge master-planned communities. These can be called company towns since they were not developed as part of a city, but completely on their own. Often these towns then grow into full fledged cities and then become incorporated, such as Irvine, California. By contrast, The Woodlands, Texas is an example of a still growing company town that might be annexed by nearby Houston in the foreseeable future.

List of company towns

Towns listed in bold are still considered company towns today; other entries are former company towns. See for an unannotated list of articles.

Europe

Belgium

Louvain-la-Neuve, home of the Université Catholique de Louvain

France

Noisiel (Seine-et-Marne), home of the chocolate factory owned by the Menier Family

Sochaux-Montbéliard (Doubs), home of Peugeot

Villeneuvette (Hérault), mill town owned by Jules Maistre

Ireland

Rochfortbridge (County Westmeath), built by public company OPW in the 1840s as part of famine relief on the site of an original village and rebuilt 110 years later by Bord na Móna during the 1950s for its employees, the more modern phase being designed by architect Frank Gibney.

Denmark

Germany

Leverkusen, home of the Bayer AG (?)

Wolfsburg, built to house Volkswagen workers

Transnistria (Moldova)

Dnestrovsk, developed by Moldavskaya GRES

Netherlands

Batadorp, Best municipality, developed by Bata Shoes

Heveadorp, Renkum municipality, developed by Hevea Shoes

Russia

Non-ferrous metal industry (the plants there are mostly owned by Norilsk Nickel):

Norilsk

Monchegorsk

Zapolyarny

Nikel Iron mining:

Kovdor

Olenegorsk Non-metal mineral extraction and processing:

Apatity

Kirovsk Oil and gas:

Surgut

Nizhnevartovsk

Nefteyugansk

Novy Urengoy Petrochemical industry:

Kstovo

Kirishi Russian writers and politicians commonly use the expression "градообразуюшее предприятие" (gradoobrazuyushchee predpriyatie, literally 'the enterprise that has created the town') to refer to the industrial facility - these days often part of a larger company such as LUKOIL or Norilsk Nickel - that's the city's main employer and the main source of funding for the city's budget.

United Kingdom

North America

Canada

Anyox, British Columbia, a now-abandoned smelter town on Observatory Inlet, near the mouth of the Nass River.

Arvida or now Jonquiere, Quebec, owned by Alcan

Batawa, Ontario owned by Bata

Bralorne, British Columbia, and nearby Pioneer Mine, British Columbia; both famous gold mining towns; Bralorne's third townsite is also known as Bradian

Bridge River aka Bridge River Townsite, now South Shalalth, a British Columbia model village developed as part of the Bridge River Power Project and now mostly depopulated.

Britannia Beach, British Columbia - a semi-abandoned copper and gold mine and crushing plant near Squamish

Camp McKinney - gold, near Rock Creek, British Columbia

Clayburn, British Columbia - brick clay mine and brick kiln

Copper Moutain, British Columbia - copper, near Princeton, British Columbia, abandoned 1960s

Espanola, Ontario, owned by Domtar

Elsa, Yukon

Fermont, Quebec

Flin Flon, Manitoba (and Saskatchewan), owned by Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting(HBMS)

Fort Vancouver and other former Hudson's Bay Company trading posts-cum-towns in the Pacific Northwest. Others include Colville, Victoria BC, Fort Langley BC, Hope BC and more.

Fraser Mills, British Columbia, now part of Coquitlam but originally owned by Crown Zellerbach (the company President was the mayor, by default and acclamation). Most workers in Fraser Mills didn't live in the "village" (as incorporated) but in nearby Maillardville

Gold River, British Columbia - now incorporated

Government Cannery, British Columbia

Harmac, British Columbia - pulp mill, near Nanaimo, British Columbia

Keno City, Yukon

Kimberley, British Columbia, now incorporated

Kitimat, British Columbia, based around an aluminum smelter built by Alcoa's Canadian subsidiary Alcan. Also nearby is Kemano which accompanies the Kemano powerhouse of the Nechako Diversion

Labrador City, Newfoundland and Labrador developed by the Iron Ore Company of Canada

Logan Lake - copper mine

Nanisivik, Nunavut, built to support a lead-zinc mine and abandoned after the mine's closure in 2002.

Nitinat, British Columbia, near Youbou, British Columbia - former company town of Crown Zellerbach, a forestry company

Ocean Falls, British Columbia, a now-abandoned pulp mill town on the central BC Coast

Port Mellon, British Columbia, a pulp mill and town on the east shore of Howe Sound near the Langdale ferry terminal, which is near Sechelt

Wabush, Newfoundland and Labrador

Woodfibre, British Columbia a pulp mill town on the east shore of Howe Sound near Squamish

Walkerville, Ontario a distillery on the south shore of the Detroit River, founded by Hiram Walker

United States

Acipco, Alabama, formerly owned by American Cast Iron Pipe Co.

Ajo, Arizona

Alcoa, Tennessee, owned by Alcoa

Bagdad, Arizona, owned by Phelps Dodge Corporation

Ambridge, Pennsylvania, Former home of American Bridge Company

Bayview, Alabama, formerly owned by Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co.

Boulder City, Nevada, built and owned by the United States Bureau of Reclamation

Camden, Texas, owned by the W.T. Carter & Brother Lumber Company and its successors

Cass, West Virginia, founded in 1901 for West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company logging the nearby mountains

Chester, California

Clarkdale, Arizona, built, named for, and formerly owned by Senator William A. Clark's United Verde Copper Company

Cohoes, New York, formerly owned by Harmony Mills

Coalwood, West Virginia, formerly owned by the Olga Coal Company

Docena, Alabama, formerly owned by Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co.

Durango, Colorado, organized in 1880 by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad

Edgewater, Alabama, formerly owned by Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co.

Empire, Nevada, owned by United States Gypsum Company

Fairfield, Alabama, (1910) originally "Corey", formerly owned by Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co.

Ford City, Pennsylvania, organized in 1887 by PPG Industries

Gary, West Virginia, owned by U.S. Steel

Gary, Indiana, owned by U.S. Steel

Gilman, Colorado, built around (and eventually abandoned due to) the New Jersey Zinc Company's Eagle mine.

Grant Town, West Virginia, built by the Federal Coal and Coke Company, which built and operated the Federal No. 1 Mine.

Gwinn, Michigan, owned by Cleveland Cliffs Iron, nicknamed the "Model Town", because CCI intended its layout to be a model for all of their other company towns

Hershey, Pennsylvania, built by Hershey Chocolate Corporation

Holden, Washington, built by the Howe Sound Mining Company, which also owned Britannia Beach. Once the most productive copper mine in the U.S., the mine closed in 1957 and it and the townsite were sold to a unit of the Lutheran church for $1 in the 1950s. Now run as a Christian retreat center.

Hooper, Washington, owned by the McGregor Land and Livestock Company

Irvine, California, built by The Irvine Company, incorporated in 1971. The largest planned community of the world.

Kannapolis, North Carolina, owned by the Cannon Mills Company

Kaulton, Alabama, owned by Kaul Lumber Co.

Kohler, Wisconsin, built by the Kohler Company

Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Bay Lake, Florida, and the Reedy Creek Improvement District located within Walt Disney World and owned by The Walt Disney Company

Lake Trade, Pennsylvania, a now defunct coal mining town in Venango Township, Northern Butler County

Lynch, Kentucky, built and formerly owned by U.S. Steel

Morenci, Arizona, owned by Phelps Dodge Corporation

Morgan Park (Duluth) built by U.S. Steel and named for J.P. Morgan

Newhalem, Washington, owned by Seattle City Light, as is nearby Diablo

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built in secret by the United States government for the Manhattan Project

Peale, Pennsylvania

(1883-1912)

Old Hickory, Tennessee, built to house DuPont employees; now a suburb of Nashville

Playas, New Mexico, built by Phelps Dodge Corporation

Port Gamble, Washington, still owned by Pope & Talbot but the lumber mill hasn't operated since the mid-1990s

Proctor, Vermont, once owned by the Vermont Marble Company. The town of Proctor was under the control of Senator Redfield Proctor.

Pullman, Chicago, once an independent city within Illinois, owned by the Pullman Sleeping Car Co.

Roche Harbor, Washington, formerly supporting lime kilns owned by Tacoma and Roche Harbor Lime Company.

Roebling, New Jersey, a factory village within the limits of Florence, New Jersey. The town was owned by the Roebling Steel Corporation run by the descendants of John A. Roebling.

Ruston, Washington, established by industrialist William Rust. The town's primary industry was an ASARCO copper smelting plant.

Saltville, Virginia, dominated by Mathieson Alkali Works and its successors through the Olin Corporation.

Scotia, California, largely owned by the Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO).

Spreckels, California, formerly owned by Spreckels Sugar Company

Sugar Land, Texas, once owned and run by the Imperial Sugar Company, transformed into an upscale suburb

Thurber, Texas, owned by a coal-mining subsidiary of the Texas and Pacific Railway

Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, built by Vincente M. Ybor for his cigar manufacturing businesses, now one of Tampa's top night spots

Newton, Iowa, where the well known Maytag company closed down in 2006
Australia

Cabramurra, New South Wales, built as part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

Mount Beauty, Victoria, established by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria to house construction workers from the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme.

Yallourn, Victoria, built by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria for workers at the Yallourn Power Station, demolished to enable further coal mining.
Asia

India

Kumarapatnam, Karnataka, developed by Grasim Industries, Aditya Birla Group. A small town developed solely due to two large scale units of Grasim Industries(textiles).

Nagda, Madhya Pradesh, developed by Grasim Industries, Aditya Birla Group. The town economy is mostly dependent on the 4 large scale units of Grasim Industries(textiles).Further Information
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