GREENSBORO, N.C. -- There were two fires within 24 hours at what people call the Old Dixie Plant on Railroad Street in Lexington.
One fire happened at around 2 in the morning on Tuesday, December 19, and the other, larger one happened just after five o’clock on Tuesday night. Even now, a day later there is still smoke in the air as crews try to piece together what happened.
However, that could be a long time as well because the fire chief says it could be at least a week before it is safe for investigators to get in there and see what happened. As for the building, pieces of it were constructed back in 1905 so it has a lot of history here.
All day people pulled their cars up to see what once was. This place meant a lot to people because almost everyone who lives here knows someone connected to the plant.
We spoke with one shop owner who says the history of the plant is irreplaceable.
“Being in business 75 years, I grew up in Lexington and I just remember a lot of people coming in and buying stuff for the plant, a lot of those families buying directly from us, and it’s just an icon, you can’t replace something like that,” said Gail Lanier, the owner of Lanier's True Value hardware store.
People are just heartbroken over this situation. One woman pulled up with tears in her eyes when she saw what happened.
Even one of the officers at the news conference today had a summer job there, so you can just see how much this plant means to this town and these people.
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