Fall River’s unofficial slogan is “Make it Here,” and we certainly do. Though the city is often stereotyped as a town full of dead mills where manufacturing is a distant memory, plenty of companies around here still produce goods — some of them destined for the swankiest homes worldwide.  

Last man standing:Fall River industrial sewing machine technician as busy as ever

The Manufacturing Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for the manufacturing sector, marks MFG Day on the first Friday of October with events happening nationwide all month. MFG Day celebrates the jobs and the workers that make up that sector of the economy, and looks to the future of the manufacturing industry. 

Here are 11 products you can find manufactured right here within city limits. 

Vanson is one of the country’s leading makers of high-quality leather apparel, with a focus on motorsports. At Vanson's workshop on Broadway, they’ve been making high-end bags, racing suits, jackets, pants and more since 1974 — a range of beautiful products, each one handmade, for everyone from the professional racer who needs a racing suit, to the casual rider looking for some protection, to someone who just wants to look awesome in a leather jacket. (vansonleathers.com, 951 Broadway)

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This company at Airport Road has been building pools, spas and plunge pools since the mid-1980s. SwimEx's special pools are outfitted with paddlewheels that create an adjustable current — like having a water treadmill, useful for getting in a swimming workout without needing a huge lap pool. SwimEx pools are also made for aquatic therapy, too, helping people recover from joint injuries. (swimex.com, 390 Airport Road)

Commonwealth Soap and Toiletries on Quequechan Street is the nation’s second-largest soap company, producing thousands of bars a day, and tens of millions of pounds of soap base a year for customers nationwide. CST makes dish soap, hand soap, liquid soap, body creams, lotions, and more. The bulk of their business is producing soap for other companies, but you can buy their own signature products direct from their factory online. (cstsoap.com, 537 Quequechan St.)

Founded in 1927 in Brooklyn, Klear Vu on Airport Road is a home textiles company and the country’s largest manufacturer of chair cushions. Many models include their patented Gripper surface to keep them from sliding around, and are filled with supple, soft fill made from recycled materials. Klear Vu makes decorative pillows and ottomans, too. (klearvu.com, 600 Airport Road)

JSI Cabinetry has four locations nationwide, including Chicago, Denver and Atlanta — but on Commerce Drive in Fall River’s north end, JSI Cabinetry has its headquarters. The company designs and builds kitchen and bathroom cabinets in a variety of styles and woods. Their website includes a cool visualizer feature where you can see different styles and colors in context, to plan your kitchen upgrade. (jsicabinetry.com, 485 Commerce Drive)

Three generations of the Matouk family have kept this company afloat, manufacturing linens for the bedroom, dining room and bathroom. Matouk makes and sells high-end, high-thread-count sheets, with dozens of styles on offer, but also manufactures table linens, throws and blankets, plush robes and more. Their facility and factory store are on Airport Road, and they have a showroom on West 22nd Street in New York. (matouk.com, 925 Airport Road)

Sherle Wagner International makes luxury-level home fixtures for the bath and beyond. But this is no Bed, Bath and Beyond stuff — their faucets, shower heads, rain bars, towel rings and more are all hand-crafted by master artisans from top-quality materials like gold and platinum, destined for luxury homes, yachts and places like the Plaza Hotel. If you’ve ever needed a platinum toilet brush so expensive they won’t tell you the price, this is the place for you. The Sherle Wagner factory on Lewiston Street also produces exquisite door and cabinet hardware, lighting fixtures, and more, all made here with pride. Sherle Wagner maintains showrooms in Manhattan on Madison Avenue and in Dubai. (sherlewagner.com, 1 Lewiston St.)

American Dryer Corp. on Currant Road keeps things fresh and clean by building efficient washers and dryers for multiple commercial markets. They manufacture a series of coin-operated machines for laundromats, laundry machines for hotels, health clubs and nursing homes, and giant industrial-sized machines that can dry four loads of terrycloth towels an hour. You might have even seen their machines on TV. Remember the acclaimed TV series “Breaking Bad,” and the industrial laundry company in the series that served as a front for a meth lab? Look closely and you’ll spot ADC machines. (adclaundry.com, 88 Currant Road)

Bristol Tape Corp. on Airport Road is a converter and distributor of industrial films, foils and tapes, trusted with internationally known brands like Dupont and 3M. Some products produced and distributed there are pretty esoteric. But among other items Bristol Tape handles is mankind's most versatile tool: duct tape — including 3M’s Performance Plus Duct Tape 8979N, a type of duct tape graded for use in nuclear power plants, along with the shipbuilding and steel fabrication industries. (btctape.com, 598 Airport Road) 

This company on Anawan Street keeps America’s pastime going by manufacturing baseball bats. Axis produces MLB-approved bats for everyone from pros to youths, and makes training bats as well. Their bats come in maple, ash or birch, and in a variety of stain colors — and they can even engrave your name on them. (axisbats.com, 28 Anawan St.)

You might not think of “ice” as a product that’s manufactured, necessarily, but it has to be made just like any other product — and Eastern Ice produces it in their state-of-the-art freezer facility on Commerce Drive. Eastern makes thousands of bags of ice a day for local stores across the area, and can create 300-pound food-grade blocks of ice meant for ice sculptures, as well as ice luges: massive sloped blocks of ice meant for parties, where a drink is poured at the top and get chilled as the liquid rolls down. (easternice.net, 281 Commerce Drive)

Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.