Thomas Gustave Plant
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Thomas Gustave Plant (1859-1941) was a French-Canadian immigrant who made his fortune manufacturing shoes under the Queen Quality Shoes label. His largest shoe factory, the Thomas G. Plant Shoe Factory (1896-1976) in Roxbury (now Jamaica Plain), Massachusetts, stood at the corner of Centre and Bickford streets. Marketing materials from the factory proclaimed it to be the largest shoe factory in the world.[1]
The factory boasted numerous innovations and amenities for its workers, including an adjacent park at the corner of Centre and Walden streets. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and completed in 1913.[2]
Plant used his fortune to build Lucknow, an estate on a mountain overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. The estate is now owned an operated by a non-profit land trust and is known as The Castle in the Clouds.
The factory changed hands several times in the 20th century, and by the 1970s was used as artist workspaces.
The factory burned in 1976 in a dramatic fire.[3] The burned-out site became known locally as "the ruins." The site was redeveloped in the 1990s as a strip mall and supermarket.
[edit] References
- ^ Tom Plant: The Making of a Franco-American Entrepreneur, 1859-1941 (Studies in Entrepreneurship), by Barry Hatfield Rodrigue, Garland Publishing (1994), ISBN 0-8153-0988-0.
- ^ Olmsted Archives, Job Number 03792, Thomas G. Plant Company, Roxbury, Massachusetts (09 Grounds of Commercial & Industrial Buildings).
- ^ The Shoe Factory’s Demise: Jamaica Plain’s Most Unforgettable Fire, by Walter H. Marx, Jamaica Plain Gazette: Jamaica Plain, MA. August 9, 1991.
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