Now a city, Taylor continues to grow

When you pass through Taylor on Highway 52, you can’t accurately call it a town anymore.

The Taylor Town Council approved a measure this week to officially designate Taylor as a city, based on the 2010 Census numbers.

In order to be considered a city, a town must reach at least 2,000 residents, and Taylor’s population sits at 2,375, making it the second largest city in Houston County.

That’s up 1,898 in 2000, and the population isn’t the only thing that’s changed in the city since then.

For starters, the city hosts a major area employer in Vantage Sourcing, which located to Taylor in late 2010 and employs more than 400 people.

“We don’t get a lot of revenue from (Vantage) because they’re not selling a product, but their employees shop in our stores and buy gas, so it’s always good that you’ve got any business,” said Mayor Larry Whiddon.

The old police station, a building dating back at least 60 years, was recently demolished in favor of major renovations and additions to what was the Taylor Town Hall.

It now holds the city hall, police station, magistrate, courtroom, council chambers and water department.

“This was a $264,000 project paid for through a bond issue,” Whiddon said. “That old building was very ancient. It had been used as a store at one time, the first town hall we had, and it was our senior citizens center at one time. There was a truck that ran into it some years ago, and we never could get it fixed properly. We decided it wasn’t worthy of renovation. We’re trying to enhance and make things more modern.”

Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver said Taylor continues to grow by being more aggressive than most small towns.

“It’s always been a progressive community,” he said. “They aren’t afraid to take risks and do some things they need to do to draw attention. Taylor Plaza is a good example of that. It’s positioned well. They have quality police and fire protection, which is something a lot of smaller communities don’t have.”

Whiddon said a commitment to being up-to-date has paid off in spades.

“We’re a small town, but we have a police department that’s second to none,” Whiddon said. “Our equipment is modern. We try to do things proper even though we’re small. We have radio-read water meters. We try to go modern and it actually saves you money in long run.”

Still, there are growing pains.

The city receives little tax revenue, so it relies almost solely on its water lines for support.

“In our economy, we don’t have many opportunities for taxes because we don’t have any business structure here. Water is our business,” Whiddon said. “That’s where we earn our income to pay our employees. It’s very important to us. We move when others wouldn’t move. We have water in the city limits of Dothan. When Dothan wasn’t aggressive enough to move, we were. In the long run it’s paid off, even though at first those moves did cost us some money.”

Whiddon hopes the change from town to city will help Taylor finally achieve something it’s sought for years.

“We’d like to get a ZIP code,” he said. “We have a (contracted postal) unit from the Post Office here. We run one here that we don’t get a dime for. It’s a convenience to the people. The city foots the bill for it. Our employees run it. We were told years ago that if we would run this thing for (the U.S. Postal Service), we would get a ZIP code. That was 15 years ago, and we still haven’t got a ZIP code. We’re at the mercy of Dothan. A lot of our tax money goes to the city of Dothan.”