New Dixie Choppers to be manufactured in Illinois

Thursday, August 8, 2019

While the resumption of the manufacture of Dixie Choppers may mean that a name that once made Putnam County proud will live on, it will apparently not mean more local jobs.

On Monday, Alamo Group Inc. announced the acquisition of Dixie Chopper from Textron Outdoor Power Equipment Inc., which ceased manufacture of the “World’s Fastest Lawn Mower” in Fillmore last November.

What remained to be seen was what, if anything, the announcement meant in terms of local jobs. The shuttering of the plant put more than 100 people out of work.

Courtesy photo

According to a report on the Farm Equipment magazine website, the zero-turn mowers will now be manufactured in Illinois.

The magazine obtained a copy of a memo from Rick Raborn, Alamo’s executive vice president of the agriculture division, to Dixie Chopper dealers.

“Moving forward, Alamo Group Inc. will continue to manufacture, sell and support Dixie Chopper products as part of its agricultural division,” Raborn wrote. “The future manufacturing of the products will be located in our Gibson City, Ill., factory, where the company also produces the RhinoAg implement line.”

There is a connection to the company’s history: RhinoAg marketing manager Warren Evans is the son of Dixie Chopper founder Art Evans.

While the writing has been on the wall since November, the announcement formally ends the Putnam County chapter of a story that began when Art Evans and a few helpers built the very first Dixie Chopper zero-turning-radius mower in an old dairy barn on his parents’ small farm east of Fillmore on April 15, 1980.

Headquartered in Fillmore, every single Dixie Chopper ever manufactured and assembled between 1980 and 2018 had been made right at home in Putnam County.

It was quite a ride for Evans from the dairy farm to being named the Indiana Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and finishing among the top three finalists at the national competition.

At one time in the early 2000s, the company, then family-owned by the Evanses, operated the Fillmore plant, ran assembly lines in the old Mallory Capacitor Corp. building on Indianapolis Road (since demolished) and ran the Dixie Chopper Business Center at the airport with a hotel, restaurant and training facilities for its dealers and territory managers.

Along the way, Dixie Chopper went from its humble beginnings to a national brand recognized for its wide range of commercial and high-end residential mowers. The more high-profile recognition included an appearance on 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement” as well as on “American Chopper,” when Orange County Choppers designed a Dixie Chopper-themed bike in 2004, at the height of the reality show’s popularity.

Family ownership of Dixie Chopper ended with the sale to Textron in 2014, though the mowers continued to be manufactured in Fillmore for another four years.

Now that manufacture moves to the Gibson City facility from which Rhino produces and sells pull-behind equipment that includes rotary and flail cutters and mowers, post hole diggers, disc mowers, harrows, tillers and backhoes.

Alamo Group produces and sells more than 30 brands across its industrial, agricultural and European division, including 10 others in its agricultural division. Currently, Bush Hog is the only other brand under the Alamo umbrella producing a zero-turn mower.

Alamo products include truck and tractor mounted mowing and other vegetation maintenance equipment, street sweepers, snow removal equipment, excavators, vacuum trucks, other industrial equipment, agricultural implements and related after-market parts and services.

The company, founded in 1969, has approximately 3,650 employees and operates 29 plants in North America, Europe, Australia and Brazil as of June 30, 2019. The corporate offices of Alamo Group Inc. are located in Seguin, Texas and the headquarters for the Company’s European operations are located in Salford Priors, England.

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  • Are they offering jobs to the 100 employees that lost their jobs to relocate to Illinois plant?

    -- Posted by pjr1974 on Thu, Aug 8, 2019, at 1:44 PM
  • I guess we should be thankful they are not moving to Mexico

    -- Posted by Workingthesoil on Fri, Aug 9, 2019, at 10:38 AM
  • Guess I’ll find some other local businesses to support, and buy a better value mower next time around.

    -- Posted by techphcy on Fri, Aug 9, 2019, at 3:27 PM
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