This Vermilion County community that Honda is scouting for a $400 million assembly plant would make Mayberry look like a metropolis. There’s no local school, no gas station, no hospital.
The grocery shut 10 years ago. The grain silo was once used by hundreds of farmers but now sits near empty. There’s a post office, but no home delivery. The biggest employers are the Main Street Restaurant with 15 workers and a burial vault plant with three.
Fithian (pop. 515) is so rural and undeveloped that it might seem an unlikely site for a major industrial undertaking.
But if the Japanese auto giant does decide to build its sixth North American manufacturing plant here–and that’s still a big if– it would carry a huge financial wallop for an eastern Illinois county in a deep economic trough.
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“There hasn’t been much going on that’s been real good,” said Floyd Martin, 73, who has lived here for three decades.
That could prove part of the attraction for Honda, which is considering sites in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois for a new plant that will employ 1,500 and produce 200,000 vehicles.
Land near Fithian is cheap and plentiful, and the exodus of several large manufacturing plants from nearby Danville in recent years has left a skilled workforce hungering for good-paying jobs.
Both Honda and the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich acknowledge that the automaker has included an Illinois community on the short list of locales for its new plant, expected to open in 2008. Neither will identify the town.
But a flurry of recent surveying and soil testing near Fithian, conducted by a company associated with past Honda developments, has fueled strong speculation. Sources familiar with the negotiations confirm that Fithian, halfway between Danville and Urbana-Champaign, is Illinois’ candidate.
It would be a welcome economic tonic for a county where unemployment in recent years has hovered between 7 percent and 8 percent, about two percentage points higher than the statewide average. A General Motors foundry that once employed 2,000 closed in Danville a few years ago, as did a big General Electric plant that made parts for light fixtures.
With its manufacturing base gutted, the county’s largest employer is now a Veterans Administration hospital. Even the smaller factory where Chuckles, the candy brand manufactured in Danville for decades, shut down not long ago.
The economic squeeze has bled over to schools and other government bodies, forcing big tax hikes. It has also contributed to a sharp decline in home values. The National Association of Realtors recently reported that home prices in the Danville area had fallen 12 percent over the last year, the sharpest decline in the nation. The median home price of $52,500 was also the nation’s lowest for a metropolitan market.
Winning the Honda sweepstakes, folks here hope, could turn things around in a hurry. The economic impact would be felt region-wide, but no more so than in Fithian.
“It would be a whole new way of life for that community,” said Vermilion County Board Chairman Bill Boyer.
Fithian is named for William Fithian, a prairie doctor who once served with Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois legislature. Lincoln’s first trip to Danville was to represent Fithian in a court case, and Lincoln used Fithian’s house in 1858 to deliver a speech during his famous U.S. Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas.
In 1871, Fithian donated five acres from a much larger tract of land he owned to start his namesake community.
Like many small communities across central and southern Illinois, Fithian has struggled to survive the ups and downs of an agricultural economy.
“Fithian could really use some jobs,” said Joe Gillespie, 38, standing in the Forsyth burial vault shop. “To be honest, this whole region could use the jobs. Not much in the way of progress has been happening around here for a long time.”
Adam Plawer, 26, has been doing some roofing jobs to make ends meet. But he said one of the town’s biggest problems up to now is a lack of good paying jobs and career opportunities for young people. “I have to leave because I want to become a police officer,” said Plawer.
Gary Cromwell, 62, another lifelong Fithian resident, said he hoped a Honda plant would kick-start housing values, which range from about $30,000 to $80,000. “I bought a fixer-upper a while back for $7,500,” he said. “That was a good deal.”
Fithian is a boilerplate little town, quiet and crime-free. Well, almost crime-free. Last year, authorities busted a methamphetamine lab in the middle of town.
Dean Cannon, 72, a former village trustee who was born and raised in Fithian, said he can’t remember the last arrest before that. The town has no jail, and employs two part-time cops who largely occupy their time writing tickets for motorists who like to speed along U.S. 150, an alternate route between Danville and Champaign.
Before the meth bust, the talk of the town was about Kathy Hendron and her husband, who bought the old Fithian elementary school, built in the 1950s but closed since the 198-0s.
The Hendrons purchased the single-story brick building and converted it into a single-family home. It is a most unusual home, great for the couple’s two boys, with a gym, locker rooms, a stage, a playground and several intact classrooms.
“If you ask me, I think the people around here were just glad some business didn’t buy the place and change the neighborhood,” said Kathy Hendron, 44.
The prospect of a Honda plant in their midst intrigues most Fithian residents, but a few also worried it would forever alter the small-town charm. Freda Larsen, who owns the restaurant, said the plant would be a great boost to her business, but she also saw a downside.
“Then I would have to start accepting credit cards, which I don’t like to do,” Larsen said.
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