About Textron Terre Haute Indiana
About Textron Inc.
Textron Inc. is a Fortune 500 multi-industry conglomerate headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1923 and expanded through decades of acquisitions, Textron’s divisions have spanned aerospace and defense, industrial components, automotive products, and consumer goods — including Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft, and E-Z-GO.
Textron reportedly maintained manufacturing operations in Terre Haute, Indiana, a Vigo County city that emerged as a significant industrial center during the early-to-mid twentieth century. Whether operated directly or through a subsidiary or acquired entity, the Terre Haute facility shared characteristics common across mid-century American heavy industry:
- Steam systems and high-temperature process equipment
- Boiler rooms, furnaces, and turbines
- Miles of insulated piping carrying superheated steam and process fluids
- Mechanical and electrical systems requiring constant maintenance
- Metal fabrication, component manufacturing, and assembly operations
These are the same characteristics present at facilities like regional steel operations (the regional industrial corridor, Illinois), regional chemical operations, and comparable regional power stations (comparable regional power stations, Missouri) — facilities where asbestos-containing materials were reportedly standard throughout the peak industrial era.
Why Industrial Facilities Reportedly Used Asbestos-Containing Materials
Industrial engineers reportedly specified asbestos-containing materials as essential components throughout twentieth-century manufacturing because of measurable physical properties:
- Heat resistance — withstands temperatures exceeding 1,000°C
- Tensile strength — weavable into textiles and mixed into composites
- Chemical inertness — resists acids, alkalis, and corrosive chemicals
- Electrical insulation — non-conductive
- Sound dampening — effective acoustic barrier
- Low cost — abundant from domestic mines, inexpensive to process
From the 1920s through the mid-1970s, asbestos-containing insulation, gaskets, floor tiles, and spray coatings were allegedly engineered as standard structural and safety components. That made disturbance of asbestos-containing materials a routine feature of daily maintenance, repair, and construction work.
What Manufacturers Knew — and When They Knew It
Internal documents produced in decades of asbestos litigation reportedly show that major manufacturers who supplied asbestos-containing materials to American industrial facilities — including, Fiberglas**, ceiling tile, and Industries** — knew or had strong reason to know that asbestos fibers caused serious lung disease as early as the 1930s and 1940s. These companies continued manufacturing and marketing asbestos-containing products without adequate warnings for decades.
That deliberate suppression of health information — not just negligence, but concealment — is the legal foundation for asbestos product liability claims. It is the factual foundation on which workers and families bring these claims.
General Equipment at Textron Terre Haute Indiana
The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.
Documented Asbestos Evidence — Indiana
The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.
No IDEM NESHAP abatement notifications have been identified for this facility in current public records. Per the framing above, absence of state-agency documentation should not be read as absence of asbestos — only as absence of a formal, regulated abatement event meeting reporting thresholds. Workers who recall encountering pipe insulation, block insulation, gaskets, or other asbestos-era construction materials at this facility may still have viable claims regardless of whether a state record exists.
Material Categories in Documented Records
The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:
Indiana — Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Indiana law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (Ind. Code § 34-11-2-4). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (Ind. Code § 34-23-1-1). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.
The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.
Practical first steps
- Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
- Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
- Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
- Speak with an asbestos attorney with Indiana experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.
Asbestos-Related Diseases — Indiana
Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.
Mesothelioma
A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.
Asbestosis
A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for a claim under most trust schedules and civil claims.
Lung Cancer
Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.
Other Recognized Diseases
Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.
If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.
Data Sources — Indiana
Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:
- EPA ECHO Facility Compliance Database — enforcement and compliance records for industrial facilities
- OSHA Establishment Search — federal workplace inspection history
- EIA Form 860 Plant Data — power-plant equipment and ownership records (where applicable)
- Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) NESHAP asbestos abatement notification records
- Published asbestos trial and trust fund records (publicly filed court documents)
- AsbestosIndex Product & Manufacturer Crosswalk — historical asbestos-containing product schedules linked to manufacturers
If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.