The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has been active in 2026, rolling out a series of policy changes that mean more resources toward domestic manufacturing, rural communities and American-owned businesses while expanding access to capital for targeted industries.
A cartoon signed “W & P” and published by printers Baker & Godwin in 1858 celebrates “the goodwill between Great Britain and the United States generated by the successful completion of the Atlantic telegraph cable between Newfoundland and Valentia Bay (Ireland).
Baker & Godwin print, 1858, courtesy of Library Of Congress Prints And Photographs Division
Federal archives, meet Site Selection’s archives. August 16 was the 168th anniversary of the first telegraph message sent via transatlantic cable from Newfoundland to Great Britain. The editorial cartoon above commemorating the occasion can be found at the Library of Congress, whose website features a research guides section that highlighted the historic feat in a “This Month in Business History” entry.
“In 1856, American and British businessmen Cyrus W. Field, John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright founded the Atlantic Telegraph Company to lay a transatlantic cable,” the account reads. “They looked to Matthew Fontaine Maury, a naval officer, oceanography pioneer, and author of “Physical Geography of the Sea, and its Meteorology,” for his expertise on where to lay the cable. The path they identified was an area then generally referred to as the telegraphic plateau, incorrectly thought to be a relatively flat and shallow path. Then they hired Wildman Whitehouse and William Thomson for technical knowledge, companies to make the cable, and ships to help lay it.
“It wouldn’t be until 1866 that a truly reliable transatlantic telegraph communication was established,” the account continues. “In 1867, American Atlantic Cable Telegraph Company was granted the right to lay a cable and operate a submarine cable along the Atlantic coast and establish communications between the United States and Europe.”
Today, even as efforts such as the $100 billion “Starbase” announced in Louisiana this week seek to take the world’s digital infrastructure into space, submarine cables continue to define digital connectivity. Site Selection has worked for several years with the primary tracker of this infrastructure, TeleGeography, whose Jonathan Hjembo recently told us for the May 2026 Global Best to Invest rankings, “It’s no coincidence that Site Selection’s list of Global Best to Invest markets and TeleGeography’s list of top connected markets have significant overlap.”
One of Mississippi’s largest-ever industrial investments, Aluminum Dynamics’ $2.5 billion-plus plant in the Golden Triangle is bringing “life-changing” employment opportunities to area residents.
Recent construction activity in the projected No. 1 construction market of metro New York includes the new Park Avenue global HQ of JPMorgan Chase, developed by Tishman Speyer. JRM Construction Management says its scope of work encompassed “the comprehensive interior construction of 28 floors totaling more than 1.3 million sq. ft., supporting 10,000 employees.”
Photo by Nigel Young courtesy of JRM Construction Management
Merlo America and BiltData.ai have released a new report forecasting that U.S. construction spending will reach $2.85 trillion by 2031.
The National Construction Spending Trends Report says five markets will account for 42% of that spending: California, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. The top 10 metro-area construction markets will account for approximately one-third of the nation’s total, the report says, led by the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area ($230 billion), metro Los Angeles, Chicagoland, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Greater Houston. The top markets align in many instances with Site Selection’s most recent Top Metros ranked by number of corporate end-user facility investments.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Photo courtesy of Sevierville Convention & Visitors Bureau
This bronze statue of the late Dolly Parton by local artist Jim Gray was unveiled on the Sevier County Courthouse lawn in downtown Sevierville, Tennessee, in 1987. “Dolly herself said the statue is one of the tributes she was proudest of,” says the Sevierville Convention & Visitors Bureau, “because it made her daddy so proud.”
Downtown Sevierville is home to many sites from Dolly Parton’s life, including The Pines Downtown, an entertainment venue on the site of the theater where Parton performed her first paying gig, where today you can treat yourself to a “9 to 5” signature cocktail. Sevierville is also home to the Dollywood Foundation, where Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library was launched 31 years ago. The organization gifts books free of charge to children from birth to age five through funding shared by Dolly Parton and local community partners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Republic of Ireland. When Site Selection interviewed Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine two years ago, he mentioned the program’s success and expansion as part of his administration’s focus on early childhood education. To date the organization has gifted more than 332.4 million books.
