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I've been meaning to start a thread for this place for months now, and another member recently stopped by here a couple days ago. This, coupled with my current insomnia, has inspired me to complete that which I meant to do long ago... upload a few photos of the Arkansas scissor factory and share with them y'all. I can honestly say, this is the first metalworks/scissor/blade factory that I have ever explored, and it was way more interesting than I expected it to be. Not to mention, I now know so much more about how scissors are made!
I have spent some time looking for any history on the place and have come up empty-handed. All I could find was one paragraph of archived newspaper indicating some guy was trying to steal equipment and got busted while trying to remove it from the property. I never even figured out why they went out of business, but I suspect that it had something to do with the loss of a big government contract. Then there was some sort of buy-out that took place before they ceased operations. There is no indication that any of the employees or even senior employees knew anything about their impending demise. This seems to be a repeating pattern with abandonments, almost to the point of sounding trite, but... it's like they just decided to walk away and leave it all behind one day. The date was probably in December of 2012, judging from the newspaper that was still sitting on the CEO's desk (who, BTW, I suspect was a woman - probably the only senior level female from what I could tell). Anyways, that's all theoretical, I found nothing regarding its history, unfortunately. But, one of the best parts of exploring these places, IMO, is the investigating and slowly unveiling the rich histories and stories hidden away just waiting for us to find.
Most of us have that one place that is "ours," and it's special like that. This is my place. I think I've been here a couple times now, and I don't even live in Arkansas.
Hope you guys enjoy the pics! CC is welcomed, of course.
 The finished product.
 It looks like this company completed every stage of the process, from shaping the metal in an enormous kiln-type thing, all the way to the final polish and buff. I have to say, they made a great pair of scissors!
 There were several dozen, maybe even a hundred or more, of fans of all types. This place must have reached incredibly high temperatures in the warehouse areas during their working hours, especially in the oppressively hot and humid Arkansas summertime.
 If any of you guys know anything about these machines or what's going on in all of these photos, please do share!
I was even lucky enough to get a night with a new moon so I could take some decent star shots at the back of the facility. I'm not sure what these huge vats did, but I'm assuming it had something to do with waste and toxins. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I guess it's the lower resolution, but it seems like my photos look so much crappier once I get them uploaded. Sorry about the excessive grit, it wasn't there before!
I wandered till the stars went dim. | |
sweet find and some very nice photos!
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Nice find. I always enjoy it when there are still remanence of what the location was before it was abandoned. Makes going through the location a lot more interesting.
instagram
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Wow! Very well shot and documented.
Flickr Pitchrs | |
What an awesome place to visit! love the shots of what's left behind, which seem to be quite a bit...almost enough to tell the story of what once was.
thanks for sharing these.
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Thanks for the compliments, this place is definitely a treat to visit (too bad it's so far from me). As an added bonus, there are the ruins of an old Ice House right next door. The place looms above the town and is probably the highest structure in the entire area. It was a welcomed reprieve from the heat during my last visit, as the reinforced walls still provided quite a bit of cool air to counteract the thick heat out there. Ugh.
It's been abandoned probably 50+ years, judging from the sizable trees and plant life growing inside of it:
by Dee Ashley, on Flickr
I forgot to post anything about this little bonus explore, but it is pretty awesome in its own right too.
Ice House by Dee Ashley, on Flickr
by Dee Ashley, on Flickr
by Dee Ashley, on Flickr
by Dee Ashley, on Flickr
And lastly... my graffiti art from next door!
by Dee Ashley, on Flickr
I wandered till the stars went dim. | |
beautiful shots! neat location.
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Couldn't believe you hadn't received any LIKES for these locations. Great Job on both of these Dee. Loved the factory, but had a special fondness for the nature shots of the tree roots and the openings at the old Ice House. Really Awesome.
A place of Mystery is Always worth a curiosity trip!
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Looks like they had some lathes for shaping the halves of the scissors, and then they had workbenches for attaching the two halves together.
Those fans look pretty ghetto. Look at the "stands"; they're tire rims. I imagine the employees weren't paid too well, but then again how hard is it to turn a screwdriver 5000 times a day?
Not sure what the vats are all about...
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
- Leonardo da Vinci | |
Man oh man, you got some great shots here. Sucks that you can't figure out the history of the place.
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killer set
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Very nice Dee
It reeks of the 50's...
I'm in wuv.
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in.
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Lots left behind! Great lookin' spot. Thanks for sharing.
"When it rains, just find bigger drains." | |
Posted by MisUnderstood!
Couldn't believe you hadn't received any LIKES for these locations. Great Job on both of these Dee. Loved the factory, but had a special fondness for the nature shots of the tree roots and the openings at the old Ice House. Really Awesome.
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Thanks! Yeah, in some ways the ice house was more photogenic than the scissor factory, but the factory was definitely a more in-depth explore. I do enjoy visiting the ice house too though, I've been to it almost as many times as the scissor factory.
I wandered till the stars went dim. | |
Posted by Darendor
Looks like they had some lathes for shaping the halves of the scissors, and then they had workbenches for attaching the two halves together.
Those fans look pretty ghetto. Look at the "stands"; they're tire rims. I imagine the employees weren't paid too well, but then again how hard is it to turn a screwdriver 5000 times a day?
Not sure what the vats are all about...
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I wish I could find the brochure from this place. It was the closest I will probably get to reliable information about the factory. It talked about how they did everything from the shaping of the raw metal all the way to the final polish and sheaths. It'll show up when I stop looking for it, lol. I also remember reading something from OSHA about how their company is (was) one of only a couple hundred AR companies that were in a particular class which required much more rigorous inspections and safeguards. I also noticed a level 5 hazmat suit along with a respirator that had cartridges in addition to the P100 filters (I can't remember which specific cartridges though).
Basically, I got the impression that these people dealt with some pretty dangerous stuff to get to the desired result.
EDIT: I meant to also mention how observant you are with those fans! Haha, I've been here four or five times but never really noticed that. If I had to guess, I'd say it was something the workers, or possibly the management, rigged together as a half-assed improvement to overall comfort levels.
Lastly, another friend of mine that I brought here suggested that some of those vats would be filled with some type of rock that acted as an abrasive and would kind of provide a rough finish for the metal. I'm guessing this would have occurred about midway through the process, but that is an admittedly uneducated guess.
[last edit 7/12/2016 1:49 AM by Dee Ashley - edited 1 times]
I wandered till the stars went dim. |
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