The Birth of Industry in Çorum (1950-1980): Roof Tiles, Machinery and Food

According to the chapter on this period in Çorum Tarihi (Turkish, “History of Çorum”), three major transformations shaped Çorum’s economy between 1950 and 1980: the rapid development of road transport, the spread of farm mechanization and fertilizer/high-yield seed use, and, from the 1970s onward, industrialization generated within the city itself. The chapter, written by urban historian İlhan Tekeli, describes these three processes together turning Çorum from a market town that controlled agricultural surplus into a producing industrial city (Çorum Tarihi, p. 279).

Expanding Borders

After 1950, Çorum’s administrative borders changed three times: on 22 July 1953 Kargı was separated from Kastamonu province and attached to Çorum, enlarging the province by about 1,301 km²; on 1 April 1958 Bayat split off from İskilip to become its own district; and in 1959 Ortaköy split off from Mecitözü and gained district status (Çorum Tarihi, p. 284).

Farming, Forestry and Mining in the Hinterland

According to the book, the technological development of Çorum’s agriculture can be traced through three phases: from 1950 to 1966 only the number of tractors increased, but since inputs such as fertilizer did not spread widely, yields did not rise significantly; between 1966 and 1976 mechanization was joined by the use of high-yield seed varieties and fertilizer; and from 1970 onward the Çorum-Çankırı Rural Development Project spread agricultural education and technology more broadly (Çorum Tarihi, p. 285). Launched at the end of 1976 with a budget of USD 161.6 million, the project aimed to raise the income of 8,000 farming families over five years from an average of USD 980 to USD 1,670 (about a 70% increase); to achieve this it envisaged agricultural training, credit, irrigation of 12,500 hectares, the improvement of 1,133 km of village roads, and bringing drinking water to 120 villages and electricity to 233. By mid-1981, credit relationships had been established with 44,000 farmers, and 252 “lead farmers” in 137 villages had been selected as model operations (Çorum Tarihi, p. 285-286).

In this period the main products of Çorum’s rural economy were wheat, barley, rice, sugar beet, onion and potato; after 1975, as crop rotation spread, maize, chickpea, lentil and sunflower also gained importance, and the number of specialized crops rose from six to ten (Çorum Tarihi, p. 288-289). In livestock, the number of sheep (mostly Akkaraman and Gıcık breeds) rose sharply after 1970 to become the dominant small-ruminant type; in cattle, native black breeds were increasingly crossed with Swiss Red and Holstein stock (Çorum Tarihi, p. 290-291).

The province’s 349,647 hectares of forest (about 28.9% of its surface area) were managed by three forestry directorates: the richest forest cover, 58%, was in Kargı, followed by 31% in İskilip-Bayat and 24% in the Merkez-Osmancık-Mecitözü-Ortaköy-Alaca-Sungurlu directorate; of the province’s 754 villages, 143 were counted as forest-interior villages and 190 as forest-edge villages (Çorum Tarihi, p. 292).

The main mining activity was the Alpagut and Dodurga lignite (brown coal) deposits between Osmancık and İskilip. The provincial special administration began working Alpagut in 1942; TKİ (the state coal enterprise) brought the Dodurga field into operation in 1954; in 1970 the special administration also transferred its own Alpagut operation to TKİ. With reserves of about 22 million tonnes and an average calorific value of 4,800 kcal/kg, output of this lignite rose from 200,000 tonnes a year in 1970 to 594,500 tonnes in 1981, while the TKİ workforce grew from 1,114 to 1,828; 75% of the coal produced was consumed in and around Çorum, mainly as fuel for the city’s cement and brick-tile factories (Çorum Tarihi, p. 292-293). Salt was extracted in Sungurlu’s Tekelce area and in İskilip (6,325 tonnes in 1980); copper, manganese, asbestos and iron were worked on a small scale, while extensive bentonite deposits remained untapped (Çorum Tarihi, p. 293).

The Birth of Industry in the City

According to the book, the first industrial push after 1950 came from flour mills processing the province’s staple crop, wheat: Nafiz Battal’s Yeni Un Fabrikası (New Flour Mill) opened in 1954, followed in 1955 by the Express Un Fabrikası of the Mustafa Kaleli-İsmail Bezgen-Tahir Erdemli partnership; a total of seven flour mills were established by 1974, and their products reached the 14-province Eastern Black Sea and Northeastern Anatolia market thanks to the improving road network (Çorum Tarihi, p. 298-299).

The flour industry was followed by growth in the stone-and-clay sector. Construction of the Cement Factory began in 1954 and it started production on 4 April 1957; its initial daily capacity of 450 tonnes was raised, after the 1969 switch from the wet to the dry production process, to an average of 1,200 tonnes a day (500,000 tonnes a year), with output sold in Çorum as well as Ankara, Çankırı, Samsun, Yozgat, Amasya and Kastamonu (Çorum Tarihi, p. 298).

The brick-and-roof-tile industry the city is still known for became a specialty after 1955, moving from simple clamp-fired bricks to factory production: the number of factories rose from 8 in 1967 to 20 in 1972 and over 40 in 1980, and output came to cover roughly 35% of the national market; most factories had sales offices in Istanbul and Ankara. Clay was brought from the village of Boğabağ, 18 km away, and lignite used as fuel came from the Dodurga and Alpagut mines; production used Hoffmann-type kiln technology. The book notes that Çorum’s industrialists took particular pride in supplying the special bricks used for the chimney of the İskenderun Iron and Steel Works (Çorum Tarihi, p. 298-299).

From 1972 to 1980, as bank credit turned toward industry and the domestic market expanded, Çorum’s industry diversified rapidly. Notable enterprises of the period included Talip Koç Gıda Sanayii, which employed 350 people producing canned snails, canned horse- and donkey-meat with mushrooms, meat-bone-fish meal and hides, exporting USD 9 million worth of goods in 1981; the Kızılırmak Döküm Fabrikası (foundry), opened in 1979 by Kızılırmak Holding with a capacity of 6,400 tonnes a year; and ÇOPİKAS (Çorum Plastik Kâğıt ve Ambalaj Sanayii, plastics-paper-packaging), which began production in the late 1970s with a capacity of 16,750 tonnes a year (Çorum Tarihi, p. 300-301). By contrast, two state factories approved in 1976 — the Çorum Sugar Factory and MKE’s Sınai Tesisler Teçhizat Fabrikası, which was to make galvanized wire and equipment for fertilizer, paper, refinery and cement plants — were left unfinished because of the 1980 economic stabilization measures (Çorum Tarihi, p. 301).

Alongside this large-scale industry, small-scale production remained vibrant: tradesmen began organizing into associations from 1952, and after Law No. 507 on Tradesmen and Small Crafts in 1964, these associations came together under the Çorum Union of Tradesmen’s Associations; in 1973 it had 23 associations with 4,335 members, later growing to 28 associations with 8,003 members (Çorum Tarihi, p. 303). In the same period about 1,500 tonnes of Çorum leblebi (roasted chickpea) were produced annually, of which 1,000 tonnes were shipped out of the city — a direct forerunner of today’s geographically registered leblebi tradition (Çorum Tarihi, p. 304). The number of banks in the city rose from a single bank before 1959 (Ziraat Bankası, opened 1913) to 14 by the 1980s (Çorum Tarihi, p. 305-306).

On this foundation of small workshops and factories described in the book, the Çorum OSB (organized industrial zone), founded in 1977, and the industrial estates that bring together craft and repair trades later grew; the foundations of today’s export-driven industrial city were laid over these three decades. For an overview of the current economy, see our Çorum Economy page.

Sources

• İlhan Tekeli, “1950-1980 Döneminde Kentin Faaliyetlerindeki Gelişmeler” (“Developments in the City’s Activities in the Period 1950-1980”), Çorum Tarihi (History of Çorum), 5. Hitit Festivali Komitesi; ed. Çorum Belediyesi Kent Arşivi, 3rd ed., Çorum Belediyesi Kültür Yayını, Çorum 2020, p. 279-306. https://www.corum.bel.tr/public/uploads/2026/01/corumtarihi.pdf