Dalton Corporation in Warsaw set to close its doors after 112 years, over 250 workers to be laid off

WARSAW, Ind. -- Hundreds of iron workers in Warsaw are starting the new year looking for a new job.

The Dalton Corporation was founded there 112 years ago, but now, after being bought out by investors, it's shutting its doors for good and laying off more than 250 people.

Employees tell ABC57 they thought they were going back to work as normal on January 1st.

Instead, they found out on social media just two days prior that their place of work is shutting down.

"That's how most of us found out was social media that they closed the doors; they did not notify none of us," says Melissa Staton, an employee at Dalton Corporation.

Staton is one of those nearly 260 employees who is officially terminated from the Dalton Corporation as of February 27th, to her shock and surprise.

She's been with the company since May of last year but says she hasn't worked since October.

"They just said 'Oh, we're out of this, out of that', come to find out; they weren't paying the bills,'" Staton says.

The WARN notice from Dalton's parent company, First Brands Group, was posted last Monday, December 29th to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

It doesn't give any reason, only that the entire facility will be closed permanently.

President and CEO of the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce, Rob Parker, isn't as surprised about the closure.

He says on top of the company going through bankruptcy a few different times, it's mostly a sign of the times for this kind of labor.

"This model just, you see it all over right, you drive by Gary, you drive around Erie and Cleveland, and you see all the old rustbelt manufacturing sites that have closed down, so it's not a shock, but it's still sad," says Rob Parker, Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce President and CEO.

It's especially sad for those who spent their entire careers at Dalton, like Angie Haywood, who retired after 45 years.

"I'll be seventy years old; I'll go back tomorrow if they can find something for me to do," says Angie Haywood, a former Dalton employee. "Yes, it's going to be missed. I don't want to see it go down like this."

Two hundred and fifty-seven Dalton employees are now looking for new jobs.

"There's not a lot of jobs right now. So yeah, it's going to hurt a lot of us, it already has hurt a lot of us," admits Staton. "I've put a lot of applications in, so far nothing. So, I'm not sure."

Parker, on the other hand, is confident their skillset can be used elsewhere in the industry.

"The jobs they have here, I'm sure can translate to Slate pretty easily, there's other metal companies that are still doing business that will want their skillset," explains Parker.

"I've had multiple companies already reach out to me, asking if they can interview the employees so I'm confident that anybody who had a job here can find a job."

A law firm out of Chicago, Strauss Borrelli, shared yesterday that it's investigating the WARN notice posted by Dalton Corporation to see if it was posted before the federally required sixty-day notice for mass layoffs like this.

If not, it's a violation of the WARN act and those employees may be eligible to 60 days of severance pay and benefits.