Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
March 1, 2011

TAYLOR Fiberglass in Diagonal has been going strong since 1961 and Jack and Dixie TAYLOR were honored Saturday by the Ringgold County Development Corporation for reaching this milestone.

This year marks the 50th anniverary of the locally owned company. Owners Jack and Dixie TAYLOR are both graduates of Diagonal high school and have lived in Diagonal their whole lives. The TAYLORS have four children and 13 grandchildren and stay very busy keeping up with all of their activities.

In 1960, Skyline Plastics started a fiberglass plant in Diagonal, locating in the O. J. SNODGRASS building and expanding to the JOHNSON (sic, should be JOHNSTON) Ford Garage building. They started making fall-out shelters that were shipped to Texas. E. M. WATSON, Dixie TAYLOR'S father, and Marvin SOBOTKA were their associates. They employed two shifts at this time.

When the franchise operator was killed in a plane crash, the TAYLOR firm purchased the master molds from the estate for burial vaults. The company has had the same management during these years with Jack TAYLOR as president, Dixie, TAYLOR as secretary and treasurer, and Jay SNYDER as vice-president. Jim and Lisa TAYLOR, son and daughter-in-law of Jack and Dixie TAYLOR help run the business today.

The business is built on reputation and word of mouth. They manufacture burial vaults as the main business. They also do some repair work, l ike lining stock tanks, baptismal tanks, storage tanks, farm equipment and semi-trailers.

Cemetery set-ups and sealing of vaults is offered in southwest Iowa and northern Missouri along with vault distribution to funeral directors and vault dealers in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska and Illinois.

In addition to manufacturing burial vaults, the TAYLORS also provide candles to place on the graves of loved ones at Christmas time and spend many hours making sure the candles stay lit during the Christmas season.

The TAYLORS built a new building on the original site in 1997. The business is located on Main Street in Diagonal.

NOTE: In 1995, the body of Jesse JAMES was exhumed from the Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Kearney, Missouri, for DNA testing. The tests confirmed a 99.7% probability that those remains were Jesse JAMES'. TAYLOR Fiberglass Company of Diagonal provided the vault for reinterment on October 28, 1995.

Taylor Fiberglass Company was founded in 1961. The company produces Fiberglass burial vaults and employs seven people.

Photographs courtesy of Mount Ayr Record-News

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2011