1 of 8

Homesteader president Anthony Mountain (right) and his son Remmington in front of one the enclosed cargo trailers the company has become famous for. (Photo by Jay Compton)

A portrait of Dion Mountain, who founded Homesteader along with partner Jake Beeler in 1985, hangs in the manufacturer’s corporate office.

An aerial view of the old Midas RV plant which was located at the current site of DeRoyal Industries on Highway 33 in New Tazewell. Dion Mountain started Homesteader as a recreational vehicle builder in 1985 after the Midas plant where he worked for over a decade closed. (Photo submitted)

A young Anthony Mountain drove the truck towing a Homesteader trailer in a parade through New Tazewell in the late 1980s. (Photo submitted)

Today Homesteader is located on Old Highway 33. The New Tazewell plant employs 175 people and produces over 10,000 trailers each year. (Photo by Jay Compton)

A row of hydraulic dump trailers ready to be sent out from the Homesteader plant. (Photo by Jay Compton)

A row of hydraulic dump trailers ready to be sent out from the Homesteader plant. (Photo by Jay Compton)

A row of hydraulic dump trailers ready to be sent out from the Homesteader plant. (Photo by Jay Compton)

Homesteader is celebrating 40 years of doing business in New Tazewell this year. The company was founded in 1985 by Dion Mountain and his partner Jake Beeler. The two of them started building their own recreational vehicles in the old Giles plant behind Soldiers Memorial Middle School. Today the company has grown to be one of Claiborne County’s major employers with 175 workers who produce over 10,000 trailers annually and it’s still operated by the Mountain family.

Dion’s son Anthony Mountain is the president and his daughters Amanda Mountain and Andrea Mountain serve as vice presidents.

Anthony said the Homesteader’s roots go back to Midas RVs.

“Dad and Jake had worked together in the 1970s at the Midas plant that was located at the current DeRoyal Industries site down the road,” he said. “Dad had worked there for over a decade and when Midas went out in 1982 it left him pretty well high and dry. He was the comptroller there and that experience he had there let him kind of see the industry.

“Homesteader started out by getting back into the recreational vehicle industry, building travel trailers and park model trailers was how we opened the doors. We started out in the old Giles plant and were at that facility from 1985 until we moved here on January 1, 1999.”

From their current location on Old Highway 33 in New Tazewell, Homesteader now specializes in enclosed cargo trailers and serves 175 dealerships throughout the country.

“We played the recreational vehicle game for a good 15 years, then we started branching into the enclosed cargo trailer industry in 1993 and that’s kind of where we set sail,” Mountain said. “The goal was to be in the RV market, but this sector proved to be more advantageous for us.”

It’s been a steady growth pattern since then.

“We’re a leader in our industry, a top-10 manufacturer for enclosed cargo trailers consecutively for the last 20 years serving 175 dealerships across the nation,” he said. “Our products include enclosed cargo trailers, hydraulic dump trailers as well as horse trailers.”

It’s not unusual to see the famous Power H logo on a Homesteader trailer anytime you’re traveling at various places across the country. It’s something people from Claiborne County can be proud of, knowing that trailer was built right in New Tazewell.

When asked what the key to Homesteader’s success has been, Mountain said diligence is a good word, but more than that it’s good people.

“We try to put emphasis on our people, doing well by them, doing what’s right, fair and equitable,” he said.” We’re also putting out products that the market desires at price points that make them acceptable.”

Homesteader is one of several local manufacturers that started as small family operations and have grown to be among the leaders in their industry. They provide a strong example to the next generation that great things can be accomplished here.

Mountain includes having tenacity and being able to overcome obstacles in his advice to young entrepreneurs.

“You’ve got to have a lot of tenacity and you’ve got to have a good vision of what you think you want to do,” he said. “You also can’t be discouraged when you come up to many, many hurdles because they’re coming. That’s part of the journey and it’s what makes you stronger. We faced many along the way, whether it be competition or availability of labor or supply, market shifts — you have to be tenacious.”

He added that businesses have to be able to adapt.

“If you’re going to be an entrepreneur you can’t be held up by what’s in front of you, you have to keep the vision downstream. The day-to-day routine modifications are important, you have to always be changing and evolving. If you don’t evolve you’re going to be passed up and blown off the track,” Mountain said. “Be ready to adapt and embrace it, not dread it.”

Mountain gives a lot of credit to visionaries from the 50s and 60s for making New Tazewell a good location for industries to operate today.

“Part of is our forefathers back in the 50s and 60s having a vision for putting industrial development in here. They put good water infrastructure here, that was a big hurdle back in the 60s. To build factories one of the things you’ve got to have is fire protection so you can get the building insured,” he said. “I’ve had multiple conversations with folks like Hollis Bush who was instrumental with getting the water infrastructure set up. That was something that helped to propel us.

“I think another part of it on this side of the county, when you look over at Harrogate they’re a lot closer to industries that were larger in days gone by like mining. A lot of folks over there worked in the mining industry or in farming, we didn’t have that over here. Necessity was a big thing that helped to drive that. People like to eat and the folks over here were looking for opportunities, they approached them and it proved well.”

Mountain added that New Tazewell has always been pro-industry and continues to be.

“As anything it was the focus of the city fathers wanting to promote and help with that,” he said.

Looking ahead, Mountain doesn’t envision a lot of big changes to his industry on the horizon.

“I don’t see a whole lot of modifications in our particular section of the industry,” he said. “Maybe lighter weight materials downstream, but our products have to endure a lot of use. For them to be able to stand up you’ve got to use good stuff — I don’t try to be the cheapest or the most expensive, but we do try to be one of the most reliable trailer manufacturers and that has bode well for us.”

He thinks building trailers will continue a very labor-intensive process.

“We’re a very people-centric business. It takes a lot of labor to build our products,” he said. “They’ve not made robots that can do the things we have to do because our products are all the same but they’re all different. This one is bigger, this one is smaller, this one’s got something here or there. Technology-wise to integrate robotics is not a real practical thing with our product. We’ve looked at it but every time we’ve looked down that path it’s proven not to be economically feasible.”

Mountain is appreciative of the county’s support over the last 40 years and is looking forward to 40 more.

“Thank you to all of our people and thank you to Claiborne County for being supportive for the last 40 years. We look forward to 40 more fabulous years of pushing the Power H down the road,” he said.

More News

Claiborne County holds ThreeStar Community Development Forum

April Wallace from the RHOAR Center speaks at Stand in the Gap

High schools getting new CTE buildings

Tenn. House of Representatives Weekly Wrap