As the 20th Century began winding down, the economic outlook for Evansville and the Tri-State was far from encouraging.
Whirlpool Corp. once employed nearly 10,000 men and women in Evansville making refrigerators and other products. But it closed its Morgan Avenue compressor plant in 1984, laying off some 1,500. Cutbacks followed at its sprawling plant on U.S. 41 North, and by 1989 Whirlpool employed only about 2,600. That rebounded to nearly 5,000 by mid-1994, but two years later the company cut its workforce in half. Vertical Winding Machine Manufacturer
“I think the community had trouble figuring out where those jobs would be absorbed, where would those Whirlpool employees go,” Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke recalled recently. “There was a lot of regional anxiety of the future of the economy of our area because of Whirlpool’s dwindling status in our community.” (The plant would cease production altogether in 2010.)
Another major employer, Zenith Electronics, employed 1,200 people making television cabinets at plants on Lynch Road and Fulton Avenue. But Zenith closed those plants in 1987 and moved production to Mexico. Other manufacturers that had once employed hundreds, like Arkla Inc. and Bucyrus-Erie Co., closed as well.
It was a worrying time.
But a few days after Thanksgiving in 1995 came a bombshell: Toyota Motor Manufacturing would construct a $700 million pickup truck assembly plant at Princeton, Indiana.
“I remember the day they broke ground and Gov. (Evan) Bayh came down, and I just remember what a big production it was,” Winnecke, who was news director for WEHT-ABC25 at the time, said. “I thought, oh gosh, this is going to change our region forever.”
Indeed, on the heels of Toyota’s announcement Dana Corp. located a truck frame plant in Owensboro (now owned by Metalsa Structural Products) to build truck frames while AK Steel built its Rockport Works in Spencer County, Indiana, to provide metal for truck bodies.
A milestone fell on Dec. 10, 1998 — 25 years ago today — when Toyota rolled its first vehicle, a Tundra full-size pickup truck, off the Princeton assembly line. Some 100,000 more were expected to follow annually. For the first time since Chrysler closed its Plymouth auto body and assembly plants in 1959, the Evansville area was producing vehicles.
It was heady stuff, and it was the only beginning. In the quarter-century since, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana (TMMI) has, according to the company’s website, assembled more than 6 million vehicles — 351,072 last year alone. Toyota has invested $6.6 billion in the plant, which covers 4.5 million square feet (about 80 football fields under roof) on a 1,160-acre site.
It today employs more than 8,000 people and boasts an annual payroll of $560 million. Starting pay for a production team member is $22.15 per hour plus benefits, topping out at $34.80 as of the start of 2024, according to the TMMI website. Skilled team members’ starting pay will be $32 an hour as of Jan. 1, topping out at $43.20.
In 2020, the state’s Indiana Economic Development Corp. declared that TMMI’s presence in Indiana supported approximately 80 suppliers across Indiana and had led to the creation of 24,058 Hoosier jobs over 20 years.
“It’s really hard” to fully grasp the impact of Toyota this part of the country, said longtime economic development agent Greg Wathen, who spent 14 years with the Economic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana before helping found and lead the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership before retiring in 2022.
In Gibson County alone, he said, the auto manufacturing industry accounts for $1.5 billion of the county’s $1.9-billion annual gross domestic product.
Toyota, he said, is the rare employer that can attract team members from several counties away from Gibson County.
“People will come from 90 miles away to work at Toyota,” Wathen said.
And because Toyota is so attractive to such talent, he said “it made all manufacturers to be more competitive … to retain talent.”
Meanwhile, TMMI’s product mix has evolved over the years. Tundra production was moved from Princeton to San Antonio, Texas, in 2008. In its place, Toyota began producing Highlander and Highlander Hybrid mid-size SUVs and Sienna and Sienna Hybrid minivans.
In 2021, Toyota announced an $803 million investment at Princeton to support two new models: The first-ever Grand Highlander three-row SUV, for which production began in August, and the first-ever three-row luxury Lexus TX, the first Lexus SUV assembled in America. Another 1,400 jobs were expected to be created at the plant.
“I think you have to look at it this way: It’s an understatement to say Toyota is a large corporation, but they could have made the Grand Highlander and Lexus anywhere in their corporation,” Winnecke said. “The fact that they’re doing it here speaks to the leadership and workmanship and dedication to excellence they see here.”
“We didn’t know the magnitude of Toyota’s importance until we started seeing it in action,” the mayor, who is wrapping up his third and final term in office, said. “Not just the thousands of employees and suppliers, but what they do philanthropically. If there’s any project of size in the region, you can bet that Toyota has contributed in some way. Without their philanthropy, where would so many projects stand and where would so many nonprofit boards be, because there are so many Toyota representatives on them?”
Toyota has provided millions of dollars to area nonprofits over the past quarter-century, including major donations that coincide with product announcements. In August, for example, the Toyota USA Foundation announced it would provide $11.1 million over five years to Southwestern Indiana schools to prepare students for future science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.
The Driving Possibilities grants will span grades pre-K through 12. The initial funds will be distributed through Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation, North Gibson School Corporation, Building Blocks and Youth First Inc. to provide access to quality PreK education, resources to support student mental health, multi-language learning, and hands-on STEM programs for students and teachers.
Last month, with the Lexus TX announcement, Toyota Indiana said it would donate $300,000 to the Koch Family Children’s Museum of Evansville’s Play-it Forward campaign. The funds will create an innovative mobile museum that will help provide equal access for children throughout the region to grow their imaginations and explore through the power of play, with a focus on interactive STEAM activities.
Twenty-eight years ago, a full generation in the past, when Toyota announced it was coming to Princeton, it was hard for the Tri-State to fully grasp just how big a deal it was.
“I thought, maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” Winnecke said. “It’s been more than a light. I don’t know how to even describe it.”.
Today, after billions of dollars of payroll and other economic benefits have helped transform the Tri-State and thousands of households, “It’s hard to imagine them not here,” Winnecke said.
“Personally, why do I drive a Toyota?” Wathen asked rhetorically. “I drive a Toyota that was manufactured here. I do that to thank them.
Stator Manufacturing Line Suppliers “I think people should be thankful,” he said. “We really hit a home run.”