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are numerous smaller companies in the city making a wide variety of products from paper containers to airplane pants to reflective glass beads to livestock feed to portable buildings and tarps for commercial trucks. There are at least twenty manufacturing companies in the rural areas of Northwest Lamar County that are mainly centered in the manufacturing of trailers of all types and agricultural equipment (corrals, gates, chutes, pens, etc). These companies have a combined payroll that will easily exceed $100 million per year. Both the northwest and northeast quadrants of the county have a major facility that makes agriculturally based landscape products such as bark, mulch, and similar items. Paris is the primary medical center for much of the trade area with a full range of medical specialties. The hospital was recently re -branded and is now known as Paris Regional Health. Paris also has an independent cancer treatment center and a dialysis center. The 150+ physicians and other health care professionals and the hospitals and clinics comprising the medical community are extremely important in that they inject large amounts of money into the local community that does not vary with economic recessions and agricultural commodity prices. Much of the patient load comes from southeast Oklahoma. In addition to the manufacturing and medical segments, agriculture is a primary industry for the county with an average agricultural income ranging between 100 and 115 million dollars. The nearest livestock markets and grain terminals are in Paris. Paris has two livestock auction barns, and feed, fertilizer, chemical, and farm implement dealerships. The nearest cotton gin is the PPF gin at Lake Creek. The principal livestock is beef cattle and the principal crops are hay, corn, wheat, soybeans, grain sorghum and cotton, in roughly that order. The most popular commercial strips for new chain type commercial users over the past ten years have been the northeast section of Loop 286, the eastern end of Lamar Avenue, and the north end of North Main, near the Loop 286 intersection and north of it. There has been some sporadic commercial construction along the side streets in the eastern half of Paris as well as some new activity around the Bonham Street/Loop 286 and 19" NW intersections. Collegiate Drive, north of Lamar, has been the most popular strip for local business, and the interior sections of Lamar and Clarksville streets are lagging well behind but still more popular than the other two highways entering Paris from the south and west. The west half of the Loop is mostly industrial or vacant and the southeast portion is mostly vacant or residential. Other than some new construction of small, scattered homes on infil lots in the older sections of the city, most new home construction inside Paris is mainly limited to the FM 195 corridor, northeast of the Loop. New speculative construction inside Paris and Reno, the suburb just east, has been active for the last three years and custom homes continue to be built throughout the county. Paris and Lamar County have a stable economic future based on the diversity of jobs in the medical, industrial, retail, and agricultural fields coupled with a strong local financial base and a wide trade area. These factors ensure a steady economy and a very slow but positive growth, much like they have experienced in the past. The lack of population growth, however, causes very stiff competition for most commercial uses with each new business in a particular field just splitting the same potential customer base. PAT MURPHY & ASSOCIATES