Good business alters to meet needs

Courtesy of the Texarkana Gazette
By LES MINOR Managing Editor

Two local businesses celebrated noteworthy milestones this month.

Murray, Thomas & Griffin Inc. marked 40 years in engineering enterprises. International Paper's Domino Mill observed its 30th anniversary.

These may not sound like significant spans. Forty years hardly counts as middle age anymore. And 30 years is still young in human terms. But in terms of business viability and survivability, these are more than modest accomplishments.

You can count on your fingers the number of companies that have called this place home for more than 100 years. Not many businesses are built to last; and those that are still here have to deal with shifting tides of time that create opportunity and obsolescence with equal indifference. The needs and desires of one generation often differ drastically from those of the next.

Consider the railroads. Texarkana was born of them, but most of them are gone now. Those that still exist are a shadow of what they once were.