Industry -- Watertown, Mass.
Item Information
- Title:
- Industry -- Watertown, Mass.
- Description:
-
Site of Union Market Bank. Corner of Main and Galen Streets. Large building at left was Walker Pratt Mfg. Co. Notice all the telephone poles. Union Market Bank was founded in 1873 founded by Charles J. Barry (who would later resign and found the Watertown Savings Bank), Royal Gilkey (owner of the Royal Gilkey Wood and Coal Company), George K. Snow, George N. March, Thomas L. French and James S. Allison. The Bank supported the small business man and local building projects. Rarely was stock sold and it was a community bank. Miles Pratt built a foundry in 1855. A long brick warehouse was flush with the sidewalk on Galen street, the molding room was flush on Main Street and there were wharves in the Charles River. The factory covered about two acres. As Miles Pratt struggled with his business, he associated himself with Luke Perkins of the grist mill as his superintendant and Oliver Shaw was his manager. It became Pratt and Perkins in 1857. In 1862, the company reformed again and became Miles Pratt and Co. All three came from Carver. MA. Pratt consolidated with W. Walker & Co. The new partner was Arthur Walker of Malden. In 1877, the Company incorporated and became Walker, Pratt & Company. In 1861 the Company went to manufacturing ammunition and gun-carriage castings. They worked with Gen. Thomas Jackson Rodman, Commander of the Watertown Arsenal. In 1880 a fire-proof building was constructed, 264 feet long, sixty feet wide and three stories high on Galen Street. The pattern storeroom on the island, with a solid wall towards Galen Street -- that is a wall without windows, although ornamented with piers and arches, - shows on the south side by its tiers of windows, four stories above a solid foundation wall. There is a furnace capable of melting fifteen tons of iron at a blast. The moulding room is 14,000 square feet. Walker and Pratt built homes between the stockyards and Hood Rubber Company for their employees. They built a new brick factory. They found markets all cross the U.S. and Southern Africa for their Pratt furnaces and Crawford stoves. Heating apparatus were made for the Hotel Vendome, Boston and Madison Square Theater in New York City. They also made hot water and steam heater, ranges and steam and hotel cooking apparatus, tin roofing and copper, tin and sheet-iron work. Walker and Pratt endured a strike by the employees for a salary of $2.50 a day.
- Format:
-
Photographs
- Location:
- Watertown Free Public Library
- Collection (local):
-
Watertown Businesses
- Subjects:
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Small business--United States
Brand name products
Entrepreneurship
Business
Commerce
Business enterprises--Massachusetts--Watertown
Commercial buildings--Watertown (Mass.)
Factories--Watertown (Mass.)
Main Street--Watertown (Mass.)
Galen Street--Watertown (Mass.)
Banks--Watertown (Mass.)
Walker Pratt Manufacturing Company--Watertown (Mass.)
- Places:
-
Massachusetts > Middlesex (county) > Watertown
- Permalink:
- https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/7d278t93k
- Terms of Use:
-
Management Restrictions apply. See application form at http://watertownlib.org/research/historic-watertown/photographs
Contact host institution for more information.
- Identifier:
-
figure 1449
