Lowney Chocolate Factory

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Lowney Chocolate Factory
Panoramic photo of Walter Lowney's factory, Mansfield, Mass LCCN2007661046.tif
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Location 150 Oakland St., Mansfield, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°2′22″N71°12′52″W / 42.03944°N 71.21444°W / 42.03944; -71.21444 Coordinates: 42°2′22″N71°12′52″W / 42.03944°N 71.21444°W / 42.03944; -71.21444
Area 14 acres (5.7 ha)
Built 1903 (1903)
Architect Dean & Main
Architectural style Late Victorian
NRHP reference # 16000156 [1]
Added to NRHP April 12, 2016

The Lowney Chocolate Factory is a historic industrial complex at 150 Oakland Street in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Developed beginning in 1903, the complex was used until 2010 by a variety of primarily corporate owners for the manufacture and processing of chocolate products, most recently Archer Daniels Midland. The complex, vacant in 2016, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016 as an important local employer, and a good local example of Late Victorian industrial architecture. [1]

Mansfield, Massachusetts Town in Massachusetts, United States

Mansfield is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the United States 2010 Census, the town population is 23,184. Mansfield is in the south-southwest suburbs of Boston and is also close to Providence, Rhode Island. The village of Mansfield Center is located in the town. The town is twinned with Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England.

Chocolate food produced from the seed of Theobroma cacao

Chocolate is a usually sweet, brown food preparation of roasted and ground cacao seeds that is made in the form of a liquid, paste, or in a block, or used as a flavoring ingredient in other foods. The earliest evidence of use traces to the Olmecs (Mexico), with evidence of chocolate beverages dating to 1900 BC. The majority of Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Maya and Aztecs. Indeed, the word "chocolate" is derived from the Classical Nahuatl word chocolātl.

Archer Daniels Midland American global food processing and commodities trading corporation

The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is an American global food processing and commodities trading corporation, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company operates more than 270 plants and 420 crop procurement facilities worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial, and animal feed markets worldwide.

Contents

Description and history

The former Lowney Chocolate Company plant stands on the north side of Mansfield Center, between Oakland Street and the Providence/Stoughton Line railroad tracks. The complex contains seven buildings on 14 acres (5.7 ha), ranging in construction date from 1903 to 1995. The centerpiece of the complex is Building 1, a five-story brick building with centrally placed seven-story tower. Windows are set in segmented-arch openings separated by brick piers, with granite sills, and some openings now filled in with panels. The tower, three bays wide and one deep, has round-arch windows at the top level, and elaborate brick corbelling below the eave of the flared hip roof. [2]

Mansfield Center, Massachusetts Census-designated place in Massachusetts, United States

Mansfield Center is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Mansfield in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,360 at the 2010 census.

Providence/Stoughton Line

The Providence/Stoughton Line is a line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system running southwest from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The main line was originally built by the Boston and Providence Railroad, and now carries commuter trains between South Station in Boston and Wickford Junction station in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The Stoughton Branch, built as the Stoughton Branch Railroad, splits at Canton Junction and runs for two more stations to Stoughton station in Stoughton, Massachusetts.

2017 photo MansfieldMA LowneyChocolateFactory.jpg
2017 photo

The Walter M. Lowney Company was a chocolate and candy business founded in Boston in the early 1880s by Walter M. Lowney, a native of Bangor, Maine. Lowney's business was a great success, and experienced rapid growth over the next fifteen years, repeatedly expanding its presence in Boston's Commercial Street area. The availability of ready railroad access to this property in Mansfield prompted its selection for a major expansion, and the Lowney Chocolate Company was formed as a subsidiary to manage all of the chocolate production for both the Walter M. Lowney Company and wholesale customers. Lowney himself moved to Mansfield, where he was a prominent citizen until his death 1921. The company went through a series of corporate owners, who continued to use and develop the facility. It was closed in 2010 by Archer Daniels Midland. [2]

Boston Capital city of Massachusetts, United States

Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city proper covers 48 square miles (124 km2) with an estimated population of 685,094 in 2017, making it also the most populous city in New England. Boston is the seat of Suffolk County as well, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest such area in the country. As a combined statistical area (CSA), this wider commuting region is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth-largest in the United States.

Bangor, Maine City in Maine, United States

Bangor is a city in the U.S. state of Maine, and the county seat of Penobscot County. The city proper has a population of 33,039, making it the state's 3rd largest settlement behind Portland (66,882) and Lewiston (36,221).

See also

List of Registered Historic Places in Bristol County, Massachusetts:

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