Murray, KY: Briggs & Stratton is closing their plant

Briggs & Stratton: (Satellite)

I've been mowing my grass for over four decades. This is the third or fourth Briggs & Stratton engine that I have owned. My Dad's lawn mowers also had Briggs & Stratton engines. The size of the engine hasn't changed much, but the horsepower has. I think my Dad's mower was less than 2 hp. Even though it was a side-discharge mower, I could easily stall it in heavy grass. In fact, sometimes it was hard to avoid stalling it. Now the horsepower is high enough that the last couple of mowers I have owned have been mulching/bagging mowers. I have yet to stall them. If the grass is heavy, all I have to do is walk slower than normal. And the last two engines generally start with just one pull.

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I've done some repairs on some of my earlier engines. This one is my first OverHead Valve engine. I'll probably let a pro deal with this one.

Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton plans to consolidate production of small vertical shaft engines into its Poplar Bluff, Missouri factory and close its Murray, Kentucky facility. The company said demand for the walk-behind mowers the engines are used on has not recovered since the Great Recession, in part because of a lack of affordable housing, rising student debt and a shift away from do-it-yourself lawncare. [BizTimes]

Murray has done a good job of helping to save the Kentucky West Tennessee railroad that serves it and attracting new business to an industrial park north of town, but loosing this source of jobs has got to hurt.

Topo Map

Looking at a satellite image, the plant no longer uses the railroad. A 1951 topo map shows that it used to use rail service. We can see that the plant has also expanded since 1951. The plant did not exist in a 1936 map.

The oldest historic aerial that I can find is 1968. It looks like it has a newer building, but it still has rail sidings. The building changed between the 1981 and 1998 aerials to what we see today in a satellite image.