There's only one flatware manufacturer still in the United States and it's located in the Oneida County City of Sherrill. For the first time in more than a decade, the public had a chance to tour the factory on Saturday. Melissa Krull joined the tour and gives us a look inside.
SHERRILL, N.Y. -- Many things have changed in the last century, but at least one thing hasn't changed in Sherrill, and that's the manufacturing of flatware.
"The office building that I sit in was built when Abraham Lincoln was president," said Greg Owens, the CEO of Sherrill Manufacturing, Inc. "They're gonna see a flatware factory that has its origins in this site dating back to the 1800s."
People had a chance to tour the factory on Saturday.
Owens said, "What they're gonna see is a flatware-making process that started with the Oneida Community back in the 1900s. It actually didn't start here. It started out east and up in Canada and transitioned here in the early 1900s."
The way they make flatware has changed in the last few decades.
"In order to compensate for overseas competition with low wages, Oneida for about 30 years starting in the '70's, started to automate everything that they could," Owens said. "In fact, almost every stage of the process is automated to the max. There's no other place in the world where they do it like we do."
This was the first time people had a chance to tour the facility in more than a decade. Some people said they couldn't wait to check it out.
Nora Leonard-Roy, a Sherrilll native who now lives in Iowa said, "I think this is sort of the heart of Sherrill Kenwood, and I'd like to believe that the kids growing up today will have that... it's what makes a place really special."
Owens hopes to have more tours in the future.