Industrial Legacy

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The Town of Orange, Massachusetts is located on the eastern boundary of Franklin County and was created from the portions of the four adjoining towns in approximately 1740. First referred to as “Four Corners,” it was soon more formally named after William, Prince of Orange. During the latter half of the 18th century, this classic New England village supported several farms as well as four taverns serving the Boston-Brattleboro stage road. Two of these taverns still exist in the old village, now known as North Orange.

Following construction of the dam on the Millers River in 1790, industry became the economic engine of the community’s growth in the forms of a saw and grist mill, tanneries, blacksmiths, a brickyard, pottery barns and wagon fix-it shops to cater to the needs of farmers. After two decades, the Town’s political and economic center moved southward to the river, and in 1810 the Town of Orange was officially incorporated. The Town became one of Massachusetts’ earliest nodes in the burgeoning industrial economy.

In 1840, Mr. Rodney Hunt founded one of the town’s earliest manufacturing operations, the Rodney Hunt Company. This firm remains one of the largest employers in Franklin County and occupies the north bank of a long reach of the Millers River as it flows through the heart of the town. The wooden water wheels and gates built in the company’s earlier days have been replaced by highly technical casting and machining operations producing close tolerance gates and valves for use in small to very large water control operations throughout the world.

In 1890, The New Home Sewing Machine Company became the largest employer in Franklin County, employing 600 workers and eventually producing over one million sewing machines. From 1894 to its closing in 1967, the Minute Tapioca Company thrived, becoming a household name throughout the country. The first automobile factory in the United States was sited in Orange and to this day a 1904 steam-powered Grout automobile can be viewed at the Orange Historical Society. Other industrial products from Orange include heavy machinery, precision tools, plastics and wood products.

Vigorous large-scale manufacturing, stacked for export on the Boston & Fitchburg, took hold during the industrial revolution. By 1910 F.H. Sprague was churning out every manner of clothing from vests to Railroad Trousers. The Rodney Hunt Company was founded in 1840 and produced the wooden water wheels and the sluice gates used in textile mills; later they would go on to make pumps and hydraulics. Orange boasted the first automobile factory in the US, launching a short lived two-cylinder steam engine line of vehicles: The Grouts. The New Home Sewing Machine Co., the big name before Singer, made it's home in Orange as well.

Over the years, Orange evolved as a key locale for making heavy machinery, precision tools, plastics and wood products before much of the manufacturing left central Massachusetts en masse. The OIC building, unlike many of the other structures, was never unoccupied, and has been meticulously maintained.

Orange Innovation Center purchased the building in 1984. It was purposed as a small business incubator to make and vend furniture. After two decades of restorative work, efforts to bring about the modern concept of the Orange Innovation Center ramped up in 2005. In the past 10 years alone, over half a million dollars have been invested in betterments to the property.

Tapioca comes from manioc, a root and the original staple of both the Old World and the New World tropics. As urban legend would have it, in 1883, Susan Stavers, a Boston housewife, taking advice from her sailor-border, pushed a manioc root through her coffee grinder and got just the right flaky texture for a nice pearly tapioca pudding. She had the concoction sold door to door in brown bags.

John Whitman, a publisher and grocer, purchased the rights to her process, dubbing it "Tapioca Superlative". In 1894 he bought the building from J B Reynolds, who built an enormous shoe-making concern on the site in 1887. Tapioca became one of the most fashionable desserts of 1900s and a mainstay of the Kraft Foods conglomerate. The plant operated in the OIC building until the Minute Tapioca factory re-located to Delaware in 1967.

To the Orange Innovation Center's continuing advantage, food processing is generally a clean industry, unlike the foul tanneries and grease-pit factories bequeathed by the Industrial revolution. When the Tapioca folks moved out, the George Bent Co. of Gardner moved in and converted the building to manufacture furniture. Several million dollars worth of equipment was installed in the newly acquired facility in Orange as the building was retro-fitted to meet the demands of their booming business of making small specialized tables, chairs and their famous rolling serving cart. Unfortunately for the George Bent Co., all this new equipment was financed, and when the interest rates went up over 20% in the early 1980's, along with several big customers collapsing, the George Bent Co. went bankrupt in 1982.

By the early and mid-eighties, the Orange-Athol area had seen the erosion of its long-time sources of employment: tools and shoes. State policy-makers consistently overlooked North-central Massachusetts and frustration was growing as unemployment, homelessness and hunger soared.

In response, local leaders, clergy, and business people came together and began their own regional, internal process of earnest re-engagement. Since then, there has been a spirit of turn-around as the pre-cursor of the Orange Innovation Center, Orange Investment, LLC, took root at the site of the former Bedroom Factory.