MUNCIE – A half-mile long and more than a million square feet in size, the onetime jewel in Muncie's manufacturing crown is tarnished these days.
Empty since 2009, BorgWarner Automotive is a fading landmark along Kilgore Avenue. Most of its many windows are intact and its water tower still stands tall. But rust creeps along its metal surfaces and the chain link fence where, in 1960, United Auto Workers union members jostled each other to meet presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.
Muncie's once-mighty BorgWarner plant — workplace for more than 5,000 men and women in the 1950s, when the name on the gate was Warner Gear — waits for some re-use or, perhaps, removal.
Among Muncie's industrial greats of the past, BorgWarner is unique in that it quietly lingers in place. Local Chevrolet and Delco plants were razed years ago and the Westinghouse plant on Cowan Road is now in reuse by Progress Rail Services.
The BorgWarner plant almost saw renewed purpose in recent weeks, but the possibility faded when a sale fell through.
So the plant sits and waits.
'An odd deal'
A consolidation of other Warner Gear plants, the Kilgore Avenue behemoth was a vital workplace for most of the 20th century. The plant's contracts for auto parts became fewer in number over the decades, however, and by the time Michigan-based BorgWarner announced that the plant would close in 2009, only hundreds still worked there.