FORT SCOTT — AmericanMaid, a California maker of plastic housewares, is moving into the former Timken building at 4505 Campbell Drive and expects to create about 100 jobs in its first year, City Manager Brad Matkin announced Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Matkin said in a post on the city’s Facebook page that more job growth is expected in the second and third years. “This announcement is about much more than filling an empty building,” he wrote. “It is about jobs, families, economic growth and the future of Fort Scott!”

Mary Wyatt, the city’s director of business development, told the Bourbon County Monitor the company asked for no city incentives or property tax abatement. She said the company worked directly with the Kansas Department of Commerce on state tax credits.

The Monitor also reported that BNSF has approved a rail spur for the industrial park and that building it would be up to the new owner. Wyatt said the city would not be involved financially.

Timken closed its Fort Scott belt plant in 2025. Matkin told commissioners in July that a rail spur “sounds very possible.”