Area Development
Belleville Shoe Manufacturing Company, the largest U.S. manufacturer of military boots, will open a factory in Forrest City, Arkansas. The new facility will be located in an existing 31,000-square-foot building in an industrial park and will be called the Mid-South Division of Belleville Shoe South, Inc., a subsidiary of the parent company. More than 200 new jobs will be created over the next 18 months, most of them in sewing and leather cutting, machine mechanics, managerial, and support staff. The new factory, scheduled for a June opening, will be the company's second in Arkansas; a facility in DeWitt employs more than 500 people.