Plant
owned factory
El Cajon, CA, USA[1]. Built for 1 brand on record.
Official site: taylorguitars.com ↗
102 guitars/day in a Sept 2026 snapshot (KPBS). Geolocated 2026-10-15: 1980 Gillespie Way, El Cajon (Taylor contact page); Nominatim building match; claim C441. No source states that the 1992 building is the same one as today's complex.
More: every plant in the USA, the Taylor lineage.
The point marks El Cajon, CA, USA at city level. It shows the town, not the factory gate. Recorded place[1]. Lines run in from where its materials come from (listed below). Each origin is the centre of the region or country on record, not a mill or a forest.
Every headstock this plant has built for, on record. A contract plant can sit behind several brands at once.
The operator is not always the brand owner. Follow a company to see every plant it ran.
| Years | Operator | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1992–now | Taylor Guitars (Westland Music Co. / Taylor-Listug) | secondary[2] |
The plant stays the same across these rows; the company behind the name does not.
| Years | Line | Owner | Parent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992–2021[4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2, 3] | Taylor USA | Taylor Guitars (Westland Music Co. / Taylor-Listug) | — |
| 2021–now[4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 2, 3] | Taylor USA | Taylor Guitars (Westland Music Co. / Taylor-Listug) | Taylor Guitars ESOP |
What reaches the plant, in what form, from where, and who supplied it. A plant building for several brands draws on the same supply for all of them. 2 of these have no map point and are listed only.
| Material | Form | From | Supplier | Customs | Years | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ebony Diospyros crassifloraTaylor and Madinter bought the Crelicam mill in 2011 | sawn lumber | Yaounde, Cameroon | Crelicam | — | c. 2011–now | primary[12, 13, 14, 15] |
| Honduran rosewood Dalbergia stevensoniiAdded 2026-10-15 (llm:claude-sonnet-5-5). ImportGenius lists River Works Ltd (Belize) shipping to Taylor-Listug, 11 containers about 86,298 kg, 2013-10-17 to 2026-09-08. Slabs/boards form inferred from the summary. Species name is the aggregator's label, not a certificate. Valid_from is the earliest record in the aggregator, not a known start. Taylor's El Cajon address appears as both 1925 and 1980 Gillespie Way in customs records. Source S204 (aggregator, proposed secondary). | sawn lumber | Belize | River Works Ltd. | — | 2013–now | unverified[16, 17] |
| Sapele Entandrophragma cylindricumAdded 2026-10-15 (llm:claude-sonnet-5-5). One visible shipment dated 2025-05-29, shipper Ecam Placages S.A., Douala to Gioia Tauro to Los Angeles, 24 packages, 12,260 kg, consignee Taylor Guitars. Species mapped to SP024 from the label 'sapelli'; low confidence. Crelicam is not mentioned. Source S205 (aggregator, proposed secondary). |
Every numbered marker on this page points here: the document, its grade and the passages relied on. An era is computed, so it cites the facts it was derived from. A fact marked “no source” has no claim attached yet.
| veneer |
| Mbalmayo, Cameroon via Italy |
| Ecam Placages S.A. |
| HS 4408.39 · Port of Los Angeles |
| 2025–2026 |
| unverified[18] |
| Sitka spruce Picea sitchensisAdded 2026-10-15 (llm:claude-sonnet-5-5). Wood & Steel 2023 says Pacific Rim Tonewoods began selling tops to Taylor in the late 1980s. The article does not name the receiving plant (the start predates El Cajon's 1992 opening, so Santee P042 or an earlier site may apply). Form mapped to blank for top sets. Source S206 (company publication, proposed primary). | blank | Washington (mill, Concrete WA); source forests Alaska and Washington per the source, USA | Pacific Rim Tonewoods | — | undated | unverified[19, 20] |
| Material not namedAdded 2026-10-15 (llm:claude-sonnet-5-5). Taylor chose urban 'Shamel' ash at a West Coast Arborists sort yard (Ontario CA); article dated January 2020. The post does not name the milling plant; Bloomberg ties Urban Ash models to El Cajon. Species not mapped (no matching species row). Source S207 (company blog, proposed primary). | sawn lumber | California, USA | West Coast Arborists, Inc. | — | c. 2017–2020 | unverified[21] |
| Mahogany Swietenia macrophyllaCustoms-record aggregator (S310): 22 shipments from Custodios de la Selva to Taylor-Listug; visible lines 'Sawn mahogany lumber' 2023-03-10, 'Mahogany saw wood' 2024-10-30 and 'Sawn mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla)' 2025-12-03; loaded at Puerto Quetzal. Only the 2025 line names the species; the earlier lines are mapped to the same species on the strength of the supplier. The importer is Taylor-Listug, not a plant; El Cajon is inferred and the Tecate and Lemon Grove plants are not ruled out. Interval runs from the first to the last visible line, with shipments in between not itemised. Proposed grade: secondary. | sawn lumber | Petén (supplier location, Melchor de Mencos), Guatemala | Custodios de la Selva (Melchor de Mencos, Guatemala) | — | 2023–2026 | unverified[22] |
| Material not namedCustoms-record aggregator (S311): 'SAWN MAHOGANY' from Tabs Investment Co Ltd to Taylor-Listug on 2022-05-11 and 2022-06-19 (Fiji origin), plus American Samoa-origin lots on 2022-04-27 and 2022-05-11; 128 containers in total. The line text gives no species, so none is set. The page's last shipment is 2022, but importinfo.com lists a further Tabs lot on 2025-11-22 (not opened here), so the interval is only the observed 2022 window. El Cajon is inferred from the importer name. Proposed grade: secondary. | sawn lumber | Suva (supplier location), Fiji | Tabs Investment Co Ltd (Suva, Fiji) | — | 2022–2023 | unverified[23] |
| Material not namedCustoms-record aggregator (S309): Lizwood Products (Cochin) to Taylor-Listug, 2026-10-07, 'Indian rosewood veneers for guitar backs and sides', HS 4408.39.20. 'Indian rosewood' is the usual trade name for Dalbergia latifolia but the line gives no binomial, so species is left blank. A single observed shipment. El Cajon is inferred from the importer name. Proposed grade: secondary. | veneer | India | Lizwood Products (Cochin) | — | 2026–2027 | unverified[17] |
| Material not namedCustoms-record aggregator (S309): Overseas Traders to Taylor-Listug, 2026-07-13, line text 'Veneers'. Species not stated. A single observed shipment. El Cajon is inferred from the importer name. Proposed grade: secondary. | veneer | India | Overseas Traders | — | 2026–2027 | unverified[17] |
| Material not namedCustoms-record aggregator (S327): Gem Wood (Cochin) to Taylor, shipments 2016-01-17 and 2016-02-25, HTS 9202.90 and 4408.31, via Singapore; Taylor is the only named customer on the page. Taylor's own magazine (S333, primary) names 'Gemwood in India' among its wood suppliers, but gives no dates or product. Form is mapped from the 4408 heading (veneer sheets); the printed HTS codes are not reconciled with each other. The link of 'Gem Wood' to CO060 is assumed from the name. El Cajon is inferred from the importer. Proposed grade: secondary. | veneer | Not stated (shipper in Cochin, India) | Gemwood Division of GMD International | — | 2016–2017 | unverified[24, 20] |
| Material not namedCustoms-record aggregator (S330): Madinter to Taylor, 'Sheets for Veneering' on 2026-07-08; further lines 'Wood for Instruments' from 2026-03-17 to 2026-10-08 have no form or species and are not separate rows. Taylor's magazine (S333, primary) names 'Madinter in Spain' among its suppliers. Madinter is co-owner of Crelicam (SL012), so the wood's origin may be Cameroon, but nothing read says so. El Cajon is inferred from the importer. Proposed grade: secondary. | veneer | Not stated (shipper in Cerceda, Spain) | Madinter | — | 2026–2027 | unverified[25, 20] |
See something wrong, or know a better source?