While the strike by United Steelworkers at the Husky Lima Refinery has been at or near the top of our news for more than 50 days now, comes a story about how the refinery was saved in the mid 1990's.
Bluffton University history Professor Perry Bush has worked more than a decade on his new book, "Rust Belt Resistance, How a Small Community took on Big Oil and Won".
British Petroleum announced they would close the historic refinery in late 1996. Bush says that would have been a continuance of the demise of the industrial midwest as we knew it.
But as he wrote, Lima fought back in the mid '90's and won.
That's why he wrote the book.
And that buyer was Clark U-S-A which purchased the facility for 215 million dollars. Bush says when the closure was announced, the workforce, instead of collapsing in despair, made the facility better and more efficient, taking pride in their blue collar work ethic.
He says local leaders set their politics aside and worked together to save the refinery.
Bush is pleased the book is out and believes people will enjoy it. It has 2 or 3 chapters on Lima's oil history and the role Benjamin Faurot played in the discovery of oil. The book is now on sale at amazon dot com
