In 1753, Greenfield was incorporated as a separate town, cut from Deerfield cloth. But the industrial connections between these two communities have been interwoven ever since.

According to Paul Jenkins, author of “The Conservative Rebel,” “Greenfield’s economy has always depended disproportionately on the fortunes of one or two large manufacturers.” From an interview in 1979, Jenkins quotes a resident as saying: “When Millers Falls Co. wanted some help staying in town … Well, the town really shouldn’t have let Millers Falls go. But Deerfield was offering tax breaks, and Greenfield wouldn’t. What else could they do?”

Jenkins concludes: “Greenfield’s idea of itself contains a profound ambivalence toward the prospect of growth.” Greenfield has an industrial narrative spanning more than 150 years of manufacturing losses:

■John Russell Cutlery Co. founded in 1834 in Greenfield, became the Green River Works and moved to Turners Falls in 1870.

■Greenfield Tap & Die, founded in 1912, became an economic powerhouse for the town. During WWII, the Department of Defense built a plant for GTD, which reached peak employment in 1943, with 3,558 employees. In 1958 GTD merged with a group of Chicago toolmakers. In 1968 it was bought by TRW, based in Cleveland. A small branch of GTD is still in Greenfield, as a Kennametal subsidiary.

■Threadwell Tap & Die, founded in 1925, was sold in 1946 to an Ohio corporation.

■Lunt Silversmiths, established in 1902, sold its name and inventory to Reed & Barton in 2009, and filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

■The Millers Falls Co., founded in Greenfield in 1872, was bought in 1962 by Ingersoll-Rand. In 1975, the company announced it needed an upgraded facility, and might leave Greenfield. A new crosstown street became part of the deal, but was rejected at a 1977 Greenfield Town Meeting. Millers Falls revealed it was moving to South Deerfield’s industrial park, sweetened with state financial incentives.

■The Channing Bete Co., founded in Greenfield in 1954, moved in 1978 to a new facility in South Deerfield.

■Heat-fab, founded in Greenfield in 1978, moved to the Turners Falls industrial Park in 1997, expanding its workforce to 100 jobs.

Despite this churning of industrial logos, as of 1972, 35% of the local workforce in Greenfield was still engaged in manufacturing. More recently, the duMONT Co., started in Greenfield in 1945, merged with Hassay Savage of Turners Falls, and with a $2.8 million MassDevelopment tax-exempt bond, bought land in Deerfield to build a new manufacturing facility.

Nupro, based in Deerfield and Whately, began searching for space to consolidate operations in 2019, including looking for sites in Greenfield. “We did a 15-mile radius from basically Deerfield and our search came up pretty empty,” co-founder Jeff Ethier said. “It’s hard to find good industrial space in Franklin County.” In the fall of 2022, Nupro bought two parcels of land in South Deerfield from the town.

After many industrial mergers, bankruptcies, and relocations, Greenfield is no longer the manufacturing leader in Franklin County. Greenfield today ranks fifth in Franklin County for industrial levy value, behind Erving, Rowe, Northfield and Deerfield.

As an abutting town, Deerfield now holds a commanding lead over Greenfield in the development of industrial property tax revenues. Greenfield has 3½ times more people than Deerfield, yet the industrial tax levy in Deerfield is $1.3 million — 1½ times larger — than Greenfield’s $856,165 industrial levy.

Deerfield’s industrial land produces $255 per capita in taxes, while Greenfield’s industrial land yields only $48.50 per capita in taxes. At the same time, 9.7% of Deerfield’s total tax revenue comes from its industrial sector, while only 2.27% of Greenfield’s total tax revenue comes from its industrial sector.

Deerfield, a town with only 29% of Greenfield’s population, squeezes out an additional $447,618 in tax revenue from its industrial property. If Greenfield had the same industrial revenue per capita as Deerfield, it would have an industrial levy of $4.5 million, instead of $856,165 — more than five times our current industrial tax levy.

In the last six months, the Greenfield City Council has twice failed to get nine votes to expand Greenfield’s Industrial Park, and to restore industrial zoning on the French King highway that existed there from 1993 to 2004. The Greenfield Planning Board has urged the City Council to support industrial rezoning on the French King.

Local industrial users are looking to expand, but we turn them away. We have learned little from the last 150 years of our industrial heritage. The City Council has a third chance tonight to create living wages for our workforce.

Al Norman’s Pushback column appears every third Wednesday of the month. Comments are welcome at info@sprawl-busters.com.

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