Oak Hall Cap & Gown to invest $1.2 million in Grayson County

Published March 2, 2015 by Robert Powell, III

Oak Hall Cap & Gown, a manufacturer of academic, judicial and religious apparel, will invest $1.2 million and create 100 jobs in establishing a textile manufacturing operation in Grayson County.

The company will renovate an existing 85,000-square-foot facility in Independence, which the town council bought in 2011.

The Independence facility will be Oak Hall’s fourth operation in the commonwealth.

The company was founded in 1889 in Roanoke. In 1976, it acquired the Bentley and Simon Co., a New York-based manufacturing firm, which supplied robes for the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and many U.S. colleges and universities.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Grayson County, the Town of Independence and Virginia’s aCorridor to secure the project. The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission approved $385,000 from its Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund for the project.

Additional funding and services to support the company’s employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.