By DAVID A. MANN
David.Mann@newsandtribune.com
CLARKSVILLE —
With its future in question, officials in Clarksville want to make sure the former Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant’s past is documented.
They’re doing so with a new documentary that uses photos, footage and on-camera interviews to tell the story of the now-vacant facility. The film, titled “Clarksville’s Colgate: Prison to Present,” premieres at 7 p.m. today (Wednesday) at Clarksville High School, 800 Dr. Dot Lewis Drive. The showing is in the school’s auditorium and there will be a dessert reception just before in the cafeteria at 6:30 p.m.
The film was commissioned by the Clarksville Historical Society “mainly because the future of the facility — the prison, the old Colgate facility — is so uncertain,” said Jane Sarles, the society’s president. Colgate closed in 2007 and has been for sale — billed as a redevelopment opportunity — ever since. A New York-based trading firm, Active International, purchased the building in 2009 and it’s now set for auction in November.
Work on the film started earlier this year, after the Clarksville Redevelopment Commission agreed to split the $10,000 cost with producer Troy McCormick, of Jeffersonville-based Natural Concepts.
Sarles said the creation of such a film was important to ensure residents’ familiarity with the building’s historic value as a prison and because, for so many years, the Colgate plant was important to the local economy.
“It was really just a big feature in people’s lives,” Sarles said.
She said she’s seen a rough cut of the movie and enjoyed it.
“It does a good job of telling the story and making it interesting at the same time,” she said.
The plant has long been a fixture on the Clarksville riverfront in part because of it’s enormous red-illuminated clock, which has remained after Colgate left for scaled-down operations in Mexico and Tennessee.
The building was initially erected as a state prison in 1847. Colgate purchased it in 1921 and began production there in 1924. At its apex in the 1960s, the plant employed more than 1,500 workers.
Telling one story without the other is impossible, said McCormick, who noted that there were still prisoners there when Colgate came to retrofit the building into a soap factory. The 60-minute film divides time evenly between each topic.
Sarles said she’s especially fond of the prison chapter of the building’s history because there are so many stories to be told.
“Surprisingly, we had a lot of documentation and photos of the prison,” said McCormick.
That’s despite the fact that it operated during a time when photography was still somewhat new.
Initially, he said, the challenge was going to be finding documentation from the Colgate era — because the company didn’t allow cameras. However, he said, after production started on the film, former employees offered pictures they had in private collections. Detailed interviews with workers — including one maintenance worker who had knowledge of the plant and the prison — are key sources in the film, McCormick said.
The worker detailed knowledge of the prison because he was an amateur historian and — because of his maintenance position — had knowledge of some of the bricked-up prison hallways and even where cells were located.
Clarksville officials have expressed interest in turning the complex into a mixed-use retail, commercial and residential development with condominiums, hotels and possibly a convention center. However, the asset company hired to auction the building has said it plans to sell it as 13 separate parcels. Town Council President Greg Isgrigg has admitted that what becomes of the property depends on who buys it.
After the film’s premiere, it will be available for sale for $20 at three local retailers — Schimpff’s Confectionery, the Howard Steamboat Museum and Clark-Floyd Convention and Tourism Bureau Visitors’ Center. The DVD can also be purchased online by visiting naturalconcepts.net/videos. Three dollars of every purchase goes to the historical society.
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SO YOU KNOW
• Clarksville’s Colgate: Prison to Present, premieres at 7 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 8) at Clarksville High School, 800 Dr. Dot Lewis Drive. The showing is in the school’s auditorium and there will be a dessert reception just before in the cafeteria at 6:30 p.m.
