City spotlight: Charlestown.

• Author: Odendahl, Marilyn
• Position: Regional Report: South

In the center of Charlestown's square stands a monument dedicated to the men and women who gave their lives fighting for this country. A half mile from the monument stands another testament of Charlestown's contribution to the nation's war efforts.

The Indiana Army Ammunition Plant--also known as InAAP--sprawls across 10,000 acres between Indiana 62 and the Ohio River. It has nearly 1,500 buildings and more than 200 miles of paved roads. This massive facility manufactured explosives and propellants during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In the process, it threw Charlestown into a boom-bust economic cycle from which the small Southern Indiana community is only now starting to recover.

In 1939, the year InAAP was built, Charlestown had a population of 900. A year later, InAAP brought 13,500 new jobs to the area and the local population jumped to 10,000. During the height of World War II, the powder plant employed between 26,000 and 27,000 local and area workers, and the total population of Charlestown reached 18,000.

But peacetime cut the employment at InAAP and the bottom dropped out of Charlestown's economy. Between 1945 and 1946, InAAP cut back from 17,670 to just 400 workers. Similar employment highs and lows came around the time of the Korean and Vietnam wars.

"This community has given a lot to the government over the years," says Jim Witten, a lifelong Charlestown resident and president of the Charlestown Industrial Complex. "The military knows this community has more than paid the price for national defense."

As a part of the nationwide downsizing of the military, the U.S. Army has realigned InAAP, leaving Charlestown without the biggest employer it probably ever will have. Yet, while Charlestown business leaders acknowledge that the closure is having a negative effect on the local economy, they also are "cautiously optimistic" that they will be able to build a solid employment base, stabilize the economy and end the debilitating boom-bust cycle.

Describing it as a "thorn in the side," Charlestown Mayor Bob Braswell explains that even when the ammunition plant was not operating at capacity, Charlestown had a difficult time attracting business. Prospective clients were leery of locating their businesses so close to a government facility, fearing that if InAAP ever had a callback, their employees would leave for the better-paying government jobs.

When the U.S. Army realigned InAAP, it allowed ICI Explosives...