Czechoslovakia brought Ilava civic life — a burgher school in 1920, an apprentice school two years later, the Sokol and Orol gymnastic clubs, films shown in the Sokol hall — but no factory. In the 1930s, when Czechoslovak arms firms were shopping for sites along the Váh, Ilava's own leaders turned heavy industry down. The town's published history calls that decision incapacity and indifference and blames it for everything that followed: Dubnica nad Váhom, Považská Bystrica and Púchov took the plants, grew and pulled people in, and Ilava did not. It is a rare thing for a town to write down in its own history that it made the wrong choice.Československo prinieslo Ilave občiansky život – meštiansku školu v roku 1920, o dva roky učňovskú, Sokol a Orla, filmy v sokolovni –, ale nie fabriku. V tridsiatych rokoch, keď si československé zbrojovky vyberali miesta na Považí, ilavskí predstavitelia ťažký priemysel odmietli. Publikované dejiny mesta hovoria o neschopnosti a ľahostajnosti a pripisujú tomuto rozhodnutiu všetko, čo nasledovalo: závody dostali Dubnica nad Váhom, Považská Bystrica a Púchov, rástli a priťahovali ľudí – a Ilava nie. Málokedy si mesto do vlastných dejín napíše, že sa rozhodlo zle.
