Wednesday, July 04, 2007

If you build it, they will leave!

St. Louis was always Number 3, after New York and Chicago, in terms of number of corporate headquarters on the Fortune 500 list. But now, gone are the parent headquarters of:

Southwestern Bell (now ATT)
Ralston Purina
Pet
McDonnell Douglas
General Dynamics
Mallinckrodt Chemical
Jefferson Smurfit
The May Company (Mayco)
Missouri Pacific Railroad
Trans World Airlines (TWA)
7-Up
Tums

Fortune 500 corporate headquarters that are still here, followed by rank by Fortune:

Emerson Electric 115

Express Scripts 132

Anheuser-Busch 146

Monsanto 323

Ameren 339 (Union Electric)

Charter Communications 409

Peabody Energy 431

Graybar Electric 450

Energizer Holdings* 636 (Energizer and Eveready batteries; Schick and Wilkinson blades and razors)

Ralcorp Holdings* 905

*Once part of Ralston Purina, as were Nestlé Purina PetCare, Purina Mills (animal feeds), and Wonder Bread.

5 comments:

Jay Noel said...

I think St. Louis is now ranked 18th.

Apart from Fortune 500 companies, we also recently lost AG Edwards, purchased by Wachovia.

St. Louis is still lucky to also have Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Edward Jones, Brown Shoe, Maritz, Solae Co. (which makes awesome soy milk),and Scottrade.

Hardee's is also headquartered in St. Louis, which I think is funny for some reason.

Carnealian said...

Jefferson Smurfit...did you make that up? LOL!!!

stan said...

There was a Smurfit plant in Oregon City when I was in high school, then it was sold in 2000 or so. They make newsprint and do a lot of de-inking of recycled paper.

Jim said...

Phoenix -- I forgot about Buster Brown shoes!!!!!!

Carnie -- I alway thought Jefferson Smurfit would be a cartoon character, like Barney's best friend

Stan -- they also make lots of packaging and containers, lots of locals work at "the box factory"

Anonymous said...

I know Houston, TX is the 2nd owner of fortune 500 companies, behind NYC of course.

About shoe companies, I once worked at International Shoe Co. in St. Louis ,(I think it is a museum now), and St. Louis had lots of shoe companies, now they are all gone.