Factory Town

Ames Manufacturing Company Complex // 1847+

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Until the early 19th century, Chicopee, Massachusetts, was little more than an agricultural district of Springfield (from which it separated in 1848). Several early mills began to harness the power of a 50-foot drop-off in the Chicopee River, but it was not until the introduction of outside capital from Boston-based industrialists, that Chicopee became an industrial powerhouse. The Dwight textile mills which quickly developed required a wide variety of related manufactures. Edmund Dwight, owner of the Dwight Mills procured brothers Nathan Peabody Ames and James Tyler Ames to relocate their edge tool business from Chelmsford to Chicopee, they did. In 1834, the Ames Manufacturing Company was incorporated with a capital of $30,000 and buildings were erected along the Chicopee River, just east of the Dwight Mills. By 1835, the company was creating works in brass and bronze, and in 1845, an iron foundry was added. The company used the foundries for casting statuary and producing cannons and cannonballs for the US Military. Additionally, the bronze doors of the East Wing of the United States Capitol, Daniel Chester French‘s Minuteman statue at the Lexington-Concord bridge and the large equestrian statue of George Washington at the Boston Public Garden were cast at the Ames Factory. After a period of decay in the latter half of the 20th century, the largest buildings of the complex were restored and converted to housing, today known as Ames Privilege.

Lowney Chocolate Factory // 1903

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The Lowney Chocolate Factory is a historic industrial complex in Mansfield, Massachusetts and was established there after town officials took advantage of rail access provided by the Boston and Providence Railroad and enticed businesses to establish themselves in Mansfield. The Walter M. Lowney Company was a chocolate and candy business founded in Boston in the early 1880s by Walter M. Lowney, who started his business by manufacturing chocolate bonbons. The company built offices and factories in Boston, Montreal and here in Mansfield, where they would ship out boxed sweets to stores all over the country. The Mansfield factory was designed by the architectural and engineering firm of Dean & Main in 1903. The firm was
comprised of partners Francis W. Dean and Charles T. Main, who had offices in Boston and specialized in mill design and engineering from 1893 to 1907, originally designing Lowney’s Boston factory in the North End. A later fieldstone addition was added in 1910 and housed the company’s office and shipping facilities. After Walter Lowney died in 1921, the Walter M. Lowney Company continued to operate under the ownership of Lowney’s wife. In the 1930s the factory property was wholly purchased by the Rexall Drug Company, who renamed the Lowney company, United Chocolate Refiners. The Mansfield factory was later owned by Nabisco to make chocolate for oreo cookies for a number of years until it again changed hands. The factory had been largely empty since 2010 until it was recently converted to mixed-income housing (the best kind of redevelopment)! Who doesn’t love a happy ending?

George H. Gilbert Company Offices // 1885

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South of the Ware River in Ware’s Industrial Village, you will find this absolutely charming former manufacturing office on the side of the road. The building was constructed in 1885 for the George H. Gilbert Co., a textile manufacturer, as the company offices. The building’s architect could not be readily located, but the building appears to have been the work of a skilled designer. When the Gilbert Company relocated north to a new industrial village of Gilbertville, the Joseph T. Wood Shoe Company moved in. The building now appears to be owned by the present occupant of the mill building nextdoor, American Athletic Shoe Company. The former Gilbert Co. Office is one of the more high-style buildings in the town of Ware and exhibits the best in Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival architecture.

Ware Town Hall // 1885

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After learning a little about some of the buildings in Dorset, Vermont, which were saved and relocated to the town from land flooded for the Quabbin Reservoir, I wanted to visit one of the surviving towns there to see it for myself. I found myself in Ware, Massachusetts, a town with a history that parallels many in central and northern Massachusetts. The town was first settled by white European colonists by 1717, and incorporated in 1775. The town was named after the English town of Ware in Hertfordshire. The Town of Ware began as a sleepy farming town with inns and taverns dotting the landscape until industrial sites were developed on the banks of the Weir River. The post Civil War era (1860s–1900s) brought a new prosperity to the now established textile mill town. “Ware Factory Village” sprang up overnight and formed the basis for new growth and development, to the east of the former town center. From this, a new Town Hall was needed, and where better to locate it, than the economic and population center of town?! The Ware Town Hall was built in 1885-1886 from plans by the prominent Boston firm of Hartwell & Richardson. Sadly, a fire gutted much of the building in 1935, but the shell remains (though needing much repair). The town, like many former industrial centers, has struggled to re-invent itself, but a growing population is a great indicator of good things to come!