Walter Industries Inc., the parent company of Chattanooga’s U.S. Pipe & Foundry, agreed in June 2005 to pay $860 million in cash to buy another Chattanooga foundry, Mueller Water Products. Walter Industries also agreed to assume just over $1 billion of Mueller debt.
Estimates at the time were that the merged company would operate three plants in Southeast Tennessee, employing some 1,000 workers in all and generating about $1.6 billion in sales of pipes, valves and flow equipment. A Walter Industries spokesman said there were “opportunities for synergies and savings” with the merger, and that Walter Industries was “not planning major layoffs.”
Just 10 months later, though, in April 2006, the U.S. Pipe plant stopped production en route to a total shutdown set for June. The plant closing brought to an end U.S. Pipe’s history of more than 100 years of operation in Chattanooga.
At its peak, U.S. Pipe had employed about 1,000 workers.