[mikeyt]

Celebrity, Godfrey Marine, Bombardier, Chariot trailers, Prestige Trailers & Heritage Trailers used to be in Benton and i think that Crownline & Mark Twain plus a couple of others used to be in nearby West Frankfort.

[ShabahZ280]

Originally Posted by theeasynine

Didn't Crownline open up down the road when Mariah closed?

Crownline was started around the same time as Mariah, (around 1989-1990). Jimmy Fulks (Mariah), and Fred Claxton (Crownline) both worked together at Celebrity until 1989 when they both left to start their own boat companies. Crownlines are built in West Frankfort, IL, which is roughly about 10 miles away from Benton, where Mariahs were built.

Interestingly enough, Crownline reportedly laid off 206 employees in June of 2013 due to a slow market... Which sounds very familiar... Foreshadowing???

[doaclnr]

Ive heard some people at LOTO complain about Crownline quality over the last few years. Ive never owned one but they seem like a nice boat. It sure would be nice to see Mariah back in full swing someday... Seems like all the quality products fall by the wayside and the not so good keep on keepin on...

[Goner]

Here is what I can contribute. Crownline was based West Frankfort and they (Crownline) built a new plant in the mid 90s on the south side of the same-Iwalked through this building just before construction was complete. Mariah ended up running some operations out of this abandoned Crownline facility after Crownline got situated and setup at their new location. My cousin worked in small parts for Mariah Boats operations in W. Frankfort, which was on Industrial Park Road by the Mc Donalds/KMart.Oh, W. Frankfort is 6 miles from Benton. Celebrity was about 2 miles east of Mariah's Benton location. Many of the hulls you guys are talking about laying around the building were scraps placed there before the end of production, nothing more. Drove by the old plant about a month ago...looks the same.

[Goner]

"Unit with boats" that Andy's picture points to was Celebrity boats that was later bought by Bombardier.

[mikeyt]

hmmm... i wonder if that had any bearing on Bombardier being one of the potential buyers of the Mariah name from Sea-Fox a couple of years ago?

Goner... anything else you can tell us about the old plant / operations?

[Goner]

Attached is the photo of the small parts location that I mentioned in West Frankfort. Production numbers were in the low teens (12ish per day) in the summer of '94 and the place was miserable and not prepared for. Production may have maxed out around 15 (per day) that summer.

Remember, production facilities go to areas like Southern Illinois, so they can exploit the human resource via low wages. Coal mining had fallen off many years before and the entire area was left with almost nothing. Now locals are screaming what a great thing coal is because it is the only thing they have to look forward to, despite the environmental impact. I digress. Imagine...$6.50 per hour (min. wage was $4.25 then/there), 95-100 degrees, fiberglass (known carcinogenic) EVERYWHERE. I think Admin gave the employees a few days notice when the plant was to stop operations. I was told they didn't want to give employees too much notice, so they could finish up business operations before they left. If you were smart you would learn quickly to get an education after working there... some were so motivated they went to law school as a result

Crownline was generally perceived to be a better boat of the three local companies. I guess 20 years later Mariah is a memory and Crownline is still making boats, thus true?

Happy Boating!

[mikeyt]

Interesting. And i dont think most of us ever thought it was all 'wine & roses' working at the Mariah facilities.

Crownline makes some very nice boats but i suspect that they simply did a better job of managing their business and their financing along with the relations with their employees. I'm not sure their boats were 'better' than Mariah boats though. I suspect both companies, with being so close to each other, were competitive and Mariah's management simply gave up the battle when they figured they would lose control of their employees once they became unionized. Just 'conjecture' on my part though....