How Slate Auto Is Helping One Midwest Town Make Its Industrial Comeback
The town of Warsaw, Indiana, is only 10 years older than the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company printing company, with their histories linked for generations-something that recent arrival Slate Auto will be hoping to replicate.
R.R. Donnelley is an American Midwest success story. At the dawn of the 20th century, the company was one of the largest publishing houses in the U.S., printing Encyclopedia Britannica, Sears, Roebuck & Co and JCPenney catalogs, Time magazine, Life magazine, maps, promotional materials for the Ford Model T and Random House books. By mid-century, the business was booming and expanding, including a 1.4 million-square-foot plant in Warsaw.
Located along U.S. Route 30 and about an hour from the cities of Fort Wayne, South Bend and Valparaiso, Indiana, Warsaw is in the heart of Middle America.
Today, the town has a population of around 16,000, double the residents that called Warsaw home in the 1970s. Warsaw's population depends on American industry. Not only was it home to the Donnelley factory, but it is also the "Orthopedic Capital of the World" and home to the first orthopedic device manufacturer, DePuy Manufacturing. At its peak, Donnelley's, as the locals call it, employed approximately 2,000 people, a significant portion of the area's population.
"I'm here today because my dad had an opportunity to work there for 38 years. My brother, before his passing, worked there for close to 30," Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose told Newsweek.
In 2016, Donnelley's Warsaw printing business was sold to LSC Communications. By 2020, the company had filed for bankruptcy and been purchased by Atlas Holdings, a private equity company. Three years later, the decision was made to close the Warsaw plant, leaving all 525 workers out of a job.
Finding a Way To Thrive
However, unlike many towns and cities that have suffered a similar fate and withered as a result, Warsaw has found a 21st century solution to remaining vibrant and continuing to thrive as a manufacturing hub.
In 2024, right after Grose became mayor, a Milwaukee investment firm was tapped to make the mothballed plant site ready for sale. Work was underway when a fire broke out. Grose remembers looking at the site after the fire and thinking, "Who is going to want to come in here?"
The answer sat with a woman from a small town approximately an hour from Warsaw. In 2024, Slate Auto was in stealth mode. It's CEO, Chris Barman, was splitting her time between Troy, Michigan, and Long Beach, California, working to start America's next new automaker from scratch.
"I grew up on a farm in Indiana. I'm fifth-generation and my family still owns the farm. From there, I went to Purdue [University] and became an engineer," Barman told Newsweek.
As the company eyed revealing itself to the public, the team knew that time was running short on picking a site if its late 2026 vehicle production timeline was going to be kept. "We were looking to find a brownfield location. We wanted to reindustrialize," Barman explained.
When she toured the site, it was obvious that a lot of work would need to be done.
"When we first arrived for consideration, it was a shuttered printing operation. Large presses. Ink tanks. They were still in the facility," Barman said.
Finding the right location for a car manufacturing site requires more than just space. A community needs to be willing and able to work there. And Slate wanted to be an active part of any community it was going to buy into.
"Indiana is in good proximity to many of our suppliers. It helps us be efficient from a logistics perspective. The size of the facility, its existing infrastructure, rail access, power and utilities suited our needs well," Barman said.
Those points were made, and more, when the Warsaw community worked to woo Slate. "As we were still narrowing our selection, they came forward to us to really talk about the merits of Warsaw. The leadership in the community stepped out to show us they would be there as a partner. It wasn't a hollow promise," the CEO continued.
"In the first meeting we had with them, they had already been working on plans with future needs of whichever company would come into the site. They shared what they were proactively working on for housing development, to make sure there would be enough housing for the workforce that would be needed. They looked at road infrastructure.
"From day one, it was a partnership where they were welcoming and wanted to show what they were proactively doing so that we would be set up for success."
Benefiting From Community Talent
Once fully operational, Slate's Warsaw operation is set to employ 2,000 people, bringing staffing levels up to nearly the same level as they were in Donnelley's heyday, merging cutting-edge electric vehicle technology with economic stability in small-town America.
Today, it's relying on a smaller staff as it modifies the site for its needs and builds prototypes of the battery-electric truck that will come to market later this year.
To get there, Slate is relying on some Warsaw residents, including those with long-time ties to the site. "We've been fortunate to hire talented individuals in the community to join Slate-even while we were still in stealth. Many of them had worked at the factory previously. Don Stoneburner, who has worked at the factory for a combined 41 years (R.R. Donnelley and Slate), has been an amazing asset to us. He's now our head of facilities, and can point out the secrets that we need to know as we do renovations," Barman said.
The CEO provided an update on the progress of the renovations, saying: "We're removing ink tanks, moving presses, tearing down walls. Concrete floors are poured. Robots are coming in and being installed right now. You can start to see it becoming an automotive manufacturing facility."
"Today, we're finishing the last concrete pours. We're in the process of wiring electrical systems for our robots and putting more robots in place. Remodeling office spaces to take them from the '80s to our modern office needs-not an overhaul but making them functional. By summer, we'll be building pilot vehicles. The next level of prototype vehicles will come off the line. That will continue into autumn. By the end of the year, we'll be shipping vehicles. We'll bring on more crews and reach full rate of production in 2027."
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told Newsweek: "Indiana has a long history of automotive innovation, and I'm excited about Slate Auto's nearly $400 million investment in Warsaw. Slate's decision to invest in the Hoosier State is a testament to Indiana's advanced manufacturing capabilities and skilled workforce…We look forward to the impact of this investment in the greater Warsaw area and the new opportunities it will bring to our state."
Newsweek
This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 5:00 AM.