While Spartanburg’s most significant tie to Germany – BMW Manufacturing Co.’s Plant Spartanburg – is well-known, the connections go much deeper, greatly benefiting our county’s economy over the decades.
A connection from Spartanburg to Germany was built in the 1960s, when, in order to boost the textile industry, local companies introduced faster machinery to better service and supply the mills. Those machinery manufacturers were mostly German, along with some Swiss companies.
Richard Tukey, President and CEO of the-then Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce, industrialist and business leader Roger Milliken, and a group of others made a point to recruit German workers to Spartanburg to maintain and operate these machines…