SAMSUNG TURNS HALF-DEAD TEXAS TOWN INTO BOOM TOWN

Texas railroad city to boom again as tech giant moves in and community say it's time to 'grow or die'

 

By Eliot Force 

 

Daily Mail

Nov 29, 2025

 

 

 

Taylor is a small city in the Austin metropolitan area with a population of a little less than 18,000 

 

A Texas town that has gone through booms and busts since it was founded in the late 1800s is on the up again as Samsung moves into town.

Taylor, a small city in the Austin metropolitan area with a population of a little less than 18,000, has been experiencing steady growth over the past six or seven years that has ramped up since Samsung began building a $17 billion plant there in 2022. 

According to local business owner Cliff Olle, trendy businesses including a Korean restaurant, 6,000sq ft arcade, speakeasy and art gallery have been popping up - a stark contrast to 15 years ago when he said 'downtown was completely dead.'

At the same time, millions of dollars have been invested in public services and infrastructure. Half of the more than $20million of sales tax revenue derived from Samsung plant's construction has been invested into services such as animal shelters, police equipment and public amenities.

The standout investment and improvement for some locals is the city's park system, which includes a new stadium with public fitness equipment inside. 

'The landscape is just completely different,' said Olle, who has been operating businesses in Taylor along with his wife, Kaitlin, since 2008. 

That year, the couple moved their wireless internet company to the city. He said that at the time, there were 'no businesses to speak of.' 

The couple now operates apartment complexes in Taylor, and they are the proud owners of Old Taylor High, a high-school building that they converted into a retail center in 2018, which is home to dozens of local businesses.

The Samsung semiconductor plant began construction in 2022, and it has pumped huge amounts of money into the local economy of Taylor, Texas

Cliff and Kaitlin Olle have been running businesses in Taylor since 2008, and Cliff said the city has already changed dramatically. The couple are pictured with their children, Alaina and Mitchell

A passenger depot and wood burning engine shows what Taylor looked like in the late 1800s and early 1900s

 

Olle told the Daily Mail that in '2018, 2019, things were starting to pick up... When Samsung was announced, I mean, that just changed the landscape completely.'

Taylor was established as a railroad town in 1876, and it was appropriately named after Edward Moses Taylor, a railroad official. 

The trains that ran through Taylor were key to its growth in the town's early years, but when the country's primary mode of transportation switched from rail to commercial and personal vehicles, the settlement suffered. 

Evolving technology has spelled ups and downs for the city, which is now on the rise as it benefits from the rapidly growing demand for advanced computer chips that power artificial intelligence and factories to create them. 

A Biden-era law called the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed in 2022, provided more than $52 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research and development.

In response, several tech giants began building plants in the US. Samsung was one of them, and it received up to $4.75 billion in federal support to construct the semiconductor plant in Taylor. 

Tia Stone, president of the Taylor Chamber of Commerce, told Daily Mail: 'Our economic development corporation (EDC) was ready.

'When [Samsung] asked questions, other people were having to wait to get answers, and our EDC already knew the answers. I think they’d even already talked to landowners to see which ones would be interested in selling. I think they did that before Samsung even called them, because it really happened very quickly.' 

 

According to Olle, Taylor was already growing around 2018 and 2019, and things really began to pick up when the Samsung plant began construction in 2022 

Taylor Seoul Food is an authentic Korean Restaurant in Taylor that rents its space from the Olles in Old Taylor High. The owner is a Korean woman who uses family recipes

 

Samsung has committed to investing at least $6 billion in buildings and other real property improvements in Taylor, and at least $11 billion in machinery and equipment.

It has also donated more than $3 million to the city, on top of the tens of millions of dollars in sales tax revenue Taylor has received from the project.

'They’ve been a great partner for our community. They've donated to our food banks. They've donated to multiple nonprofits and our school district,' said Stone.

Suppliers and construction workers for the plant's construction also pumped money into the local economy. Stone told the Daily Mail that activity has both attracted new businesses and stimulated existing ones. 

'Our local printer who does T-shirts... he still does a lot of his stuff by hand, and when Samsung has an order, it changes the whole way he can operate it, because it's quantities that he's never dealt with before,' she said. 

Samsung stated that in 2024, construction activity of the Taylor plant injected $8.6 billion into the local economy and created 8,868 direct and 9,768 indirect construction jobs, which is a total higher than the town's entire population. 

The company also said operation at the site has thus far supported 3,664 jobs and pumped an additional $184 million into the economy. The plant is expected to directly create 1,800 high-tech jobs over the next ten years.

Delays in construction have extended the timeline for the plant to begin operation. It was supposed to start producing chips by the end of the year, but that projected start date has been pushed to the end of 2026.

 

Yesteryear remembered: The Missouri-Pacific Railroad in Taylor, Texas, in 1935

The CHIPS and Sciences Act, which provided billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, incentivized Samsung to build the plant in Taylor

Tia Stone is the president of the Taylor Chamber of Commerce. In regard to the city's boom, she said: 'You either grow, or you die'

 

The city negotiated an extension with Samsung that allowed the tech giant more time to complete the first phase of its construction while maintaining the tax breaks and government subsidies that drew the company there in the first place. 

City leaders said the economic stimulation and high-paying jobs the plant will create for locals are worth the wait. 

Samsung has said it is still on track to meet the 2026 deadline, but the plant is not expected to produce the maximum number of chips it is potentially capable of until 2028 or later.

Daniel Seguin, the communications director for the City of Taylor, told the Daily Mail: 'Samsung and the city of Taylor recently amended their agreements at the request of the city to provide additional benefits to the city of Taylor from utility providers on site, decrease inspection costs for the city, and to clarify expectations for Samsung's operational status. 

'The new agreements require Samsung to install and commission $2 billion worth of equipment by the end of the 2026 calendar year.'

The Daily Mail has reached out to Samsung for comment regarding the delays. 

But Olle believes that despite the delay, the city is on the verge of a boom. 'What I see coming is hopefully more apartment complexes and more development like ours,' he said. 

'Once Samsung goes live, that's when we're going to see that huge growth of Home Depots and Lowe’s and the large big box stores. 

 

Taylor is home to a 6,000sq ft arcade. Locals hope that the city's growth could draw more businesses and continue to bolster existing ones

Sophia's Brocante is a home goods store popular with locals looking to decorate their houses

 

'You don't really see that growth until they're active. And then all that support business comes in, and then we're going to have those support companies for Samsung and chip manufacturing. You're going to have a whole bunch more businesses move in.'

Seguin said that the city currently has, 'thousands of living units... in various stages of development with over 900 currently under construction and over 6,000 in their final planning stages.'

The only caveat of the city's growth that both Olle and Stone presented to the Daily Mail was their desire to maintain the city's 'small-town charm.' 

Some naysayers do not see the explosive growth as a positive and wish to keep Taylor a quaint place where everyone knows each other. 

'But that ship has sailed, and now it's time to embrace it,' said Olle. Stone echoed his sentiment. 

'You either grow, or you die,' she said. 

But she also made sure to add: 'We are looking at all the ways you try to keep your charm as you grow. We are a community with an identity. We don't tell people that we live in Austin. We tell people we live in Taylor.'

Olle similarly said: 'My hope is that we thread the needle, and Taylor just continues its growth trajectory but keeps that small town feel.' 

 

Cliff Olle said he hopes that Taylor will keep its growth trajectory while maintaining its small-town charm

 

Stone said she is 'optimistic' about the city's future and that all this economic development will revamp Taylor into a place where families can raise children who can find work locally when they get older and stay in the city, which was not the case for decades. 

'Our civic leaders talked about... how some of their parents had to work out of town. That drive into Austin, 30 to 40 minutes is normal, but during rush hours, it's much extended,' she said.

'So it took some time away from their families, and a lot of them then decided to leave Taylor for a while. And this idea that we're gonna give our kids something, jobs to grow into, that's very exciting for our community.'