Many of Warren County’s earliest industries were related to its natural resources.

There were dairies, flour mills, tobacco warehouses and coal companies. Possibly the earliest assembly line-type work occurred in the Turner Day and Woolworth Co., which began in the early 1850s.

“The company said it made over 2,400 different types of handles for all kinds of tools,” said Jonathan Jeffrey, a library special collections professor at Western Kentucky University. “At its peak, the plant employed 125 men. Of course, even that company used natural resources from around the area, with all of the standing timber we had.”

The company was best known as the ax handle factory and was behind St. Joseph Catholic Church, where part of the building remains.

Scott Tobacco was founded in 1900 by H. Scott Brown.

“I still have a feeling that it had older descendants, though,” Jeffrey said.

Bowling Green historian Ray Buckberry said their chewing tobacco was shipped overseas to be used as payment for help that U.S. military received from New Guinea residents and others during World War II.

While the building on Clay Street still bears the name of Scott Tobacco, it is now known as American Snuff and is owned by RAI. The company still makes the same twist chewing tobacco.

While it wasn’t a competitor to Scott, another early industry was tobacco related. J.E. Bohannon Co. had tobacco processing and storage buildings all over town and in North Carolina.

“My grandfather started the business,” Jim Bohannon III said.

Bohannon said it was formally incorporated in February 1948 but was a sole proprietorship before that, likely starting in the 1930s.

“We bought tobacco on the warehouse floor, processed it and shipped it,” Bohannon said. “Most of the business was sent to Europe and Far East.”

The Japanese government and a German and Dutch company were the biggest customers.

Bohannon said they used to buy the stems of tobacco from Scott after workers there stripped what was needed for chewing tobacco.

“It had been soaked in all of those flavorings, so we would have to spread it out on the warehouse floors to let it dry so it wouldn’t mold,” he said. “I used to do that in the summers. We sold it after it dried out, but I’m not sure what it went for. I just know it tasted awful.”

Bohannon said the company ceased to exist in 1978, and all of the Bowling Green properties were sold. The eastern North Carolina properties are now used as commercial storage.

The Bohannons bought a different company, what is known now as J.B. Distributors, in 1965 from Frank Smith.

What we now call Fruit of the Loom opened in 1941 on Church Street. That company’s work expanded during World War II, when it made underwear for GIs, Jeffrey said.

Smith Air Compressors was another early industry started by Gordon Smith. A trademark application says: “Smith the Rugged Breed Air Compressors since 1932.” The trademark expired in 1995.

World War II film reels prominently display Smith Air Compressors, according to Buckberry. That industry started at College Street and Fourth Avenue in the building that has most recently been a Save-A-Lot, he said.

Ken-Rad, a division of General Electric, made radio tubes that were used during World War II.

A 1944 labor dispute resulted in the seizure of the company’s headquarters in Owensboro and subsequently of all its satellite plants, including one in Bowling Green. Operation of the plants were needed for the war effort.

Ken-Rad opened here in 1943 and employed about 200 people.

“I had a contract to wash their windows when I was in college,” former Bowling Green Mayor Charlie Hardcastle said.

Hardcastle said as he was growing up in rural Warren County, there really were only two industries in the city: the ax handle factory and Pet Milk.

Pet Milk operated from 1927 to 1975 in a factory at the end of Church Street, Jeffrey said. It converted the cream skimmed from milk into condensed milk.

“It may have employed about 100 people, but the big impact was for farmers who had some place to take their excess milk,” he said.

To keep milk and other products chilled before commercial refrigeration, Bowling Green Ice and Cold Storage started in 1888 or so, overlooking Barren River at the boatlanding.

“They used it for everything,” Jeffrey said of the ice that was delivered to homes. “The old Portage Railroad was there, so they could get ice into town quickly.”

Jeffrey said he is not sure if being on the river was significant for the business. But he supposes that they could have drawn water from the river to make the ice or even shipped it out by boat.

After 1950, the building was used by the Bob Hardy Meat Packing Co.

All that remains of the old ice house is a foundation that has been incorporated into a Greenways path.

A Warren County bicentennial book by Nancy Baird and Carol Carraco lists an industry of another kind. Carrie Burnam Taylor’s Dressmaking business employed 200 area women in 1906 and by 1914 the business had 24,000 customers.

Industry has continued to expand in Bowling Green

An active Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce and industrial board led to continued job development for the city and county.

Chrysler Air Temp was another early industry to Bowling Green, operating from 1969 to 1977, when workers made air conditioning for Chrysler products.

It is that company’s building that became home to the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant. The company moved the production of its Corvette from St. Louis. It opened in 1981, after a 14-month renovation and doubling of the building’s size.

Just about anyone in the real estate and banking business will tell you it was a turning point in Warren County’s housing market. It was a seller’s market with the great influx of people moving here.

Since opening, several major improvements were made at the plant, including a retooling for the brief production of Cadillac’s XLR that no longer is made. General Motors is about to finish up a $131 million retooling to produce the C7 Corvette. The expansion allowed the plant to call back all its previously laid-off workers, as well as other GM employees.

According to its website, the plant employs more than 513 people, who make an estimated $53.5 million a year. In 2011, the plant produced more than 13,000 Corvettes. The production line itself is one of the largest tourist attractions in the area. However, tours of the plant were suspended this month in preparation of the C7 production.

Holley Performance Products, also one of Bowling Green’s earlier industries, announced earlier this year that it would undergo a $7.8 million expansion and hire more than 130 employees.

Holley first moved its carburetor-making facility to Bowling Green in 1953 and brought its corporate headquarters here in 1992.

Jessica Thompson, marketing and communications director for the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber and community’s economic development efforts have been recognized multiple times over the years.

Some of the more notable things include having Warren County recognized as one of the first counties in Kentucky to receive the Work Ready Community certification; in 2011 Forbes Magazine listed Bowling Green as No. 5 on its Best Small Places for Business and Careers list and the American Chamber of Commerce Executives named it as the No. 1. chamber in the nation.

In 2011, existing Warren County industries announced $183.5 million in projects that will create 1,144 jobs. So far this year, there have been $17 million in projects announced that will create 151 jobs. Thompson said those jobs will come to fruition typically within three years of being announced.

General Motors’ expansion is the largest in most recent history, but some other major projects that the chamber has been involved in included Fruit of the Loom’s 2010 expansion to bring the Russell Athletics brand here, creating 600 jobs, as well as Magna’s Bowling Green Metalforming location at the Kentucky Transpark in 2004. That company invested $80 million and created 800 jobs. It was the first industry to locate in the transpark, where more than 1,000 people are now employed.