Jump to full article: Danville (VA) Register & Bee, 2005-12-14
Author: JOHN HALE Register & Bee staff writer
Intro: Universal Corp.'s announcement on Tuesday that it will cease processing tobacco in Danville - a task the company and its predecessors have performed here for 125 years - had long been foretold.
The seed was sown four years ago when construction started on a 1.2 million square-foot processing plant near Rocky Mount, N.C., in Nash County. While the company also spent millions for an upgrade of its Danville plant, the Nash County factory - completed in 2003 - was hailed as the largest leaf-processing operation in the world and stocked with the latest equipment designed by Universal's engineers.
U.S. tobacco production was on the decline then and has continued to fall. . . .
All tobacco processing in Danville effectively ended with the Tuesday morning announcement of the closing.
With it goes a 125-year history of the company in Danville, the second longest tenure for tobacco processing here. Dibrell Brothers started in 1873, but that company - after having undergone two mergers, the latest forming Alliance One - moved its production in March from Danville to Wilson, N.C.
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