A New Look For Appalachia
Athens, Ohio--Timing, John Richards would say, is everything. For more than a decade, the West Virginia native worked in a local auto-parts factory. But in 2002, Richards learned of an opening for a plant manager in a fledgling biotech firm and decided to take a risk. Today, he guides a team of employees at Diagnostic Hybrids Inc., which manufactures cell cultures used to detect, say, strep throat and SARS. And his old job at the auto plant? The factory shut down two months after he jumped ship.
This is the changing face of Appalachian Ohio, the southeastern portion of the state, where coal mines and auto and furniture factories once provided steady jobs to thousands. Although the region's 29 counties boast some of the highest unemployment rates in the state--topped by Morgan County at 15.2 percent unemployment in April--there is hope. A burgeoning tourism industry is pumping up the area's service economy, while the focus on luring high-tech firms has already reinvigorated several small towns.
Castles in the air. The Hocking Hills region, with its supposedly haunted caves and the natural beauty of nearby 233,000-acre Wayne National Forest, is the gem of the new tourism trade. Running through the heart of Hocking Hills is Route 93, chockablock with chalets, quaint bed and breakfasts, and craft stores. "It's growing so fast, I can't keep up," says Dot Scott, who sells country kitsch at the Cross Creek General Store, with Dolly Parton memorabilia inside and a garden dedicated to Jesus out front. At Ravenwood Castle, owner Sue Maxwell says weekend stays in her $195 luxury suites are booked much of the summer. "When I told the banks I wanted to build a castle in Ohio, some of them laughed at me," says Maxwell. "No one's laughing at me today." Indeed, an average of 20 new lodging facilities have opened every year in the past four years.
The tech sector, however, takes more nurturing. DHI counts on the support of a nearby Ohio University campus. The United States Enrichment Corp., which supplies enriched uranium fuel to commercial nuclear power plants, opted to construct another plant in Pike County after the governor's office offered more than $125 million in tax breaks, job retraining, and other incentives. "We're going to turn this town around," says Jim Morgan, an operations manager at USEC.
Such optimism, however, isn't universal. Infrastructure remains a problem. Large swaths of land without access to major roads, for example, dissuade companies from moving in. In Morgan County, Susan Kaster, business manager of a bed and breakfast that is now for sale, gestures toward shells of factories that once hummed with activity. "It was like a stake in my heart every time one closed," she says. -Angie C. Marek
This story appears in the June 7, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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