Documenting Change since 2002

Smith Webbing Company

A modest turn-of-the-century three story mill in a dense mill area of Pawtucket

images of this Property

  • The main body of the mill is a twenty-five-bay long by five bay deep rectangular red brick structure with regularly-spaced window openings. To the east is a later addition with rounded end detail in a flat-iron style, smokestack, and engine room with new ground-floor entrance.
    1902 Sanborn Insurance Map plate 33 — the main block along Main Street is present, but the addition that ends in a rounded flatiron shape to the east of the main block has not been built yet.
  • Pawtucket Library Collection

21 images: Press to view larger or scroll sideways to see more. Contribution from the Library of Congress (Sanborn Map) and the Pawtucket Library Collection

About this Property

Previous Tenants

Former tenants, Abaqus Software, moved to a new space at Rising Sun Mills in the summer of 2003.

Current Events

New owners, Shechtman Halperin Savage LLP, have turned the building into offices. The first floor tenant of the is the Providence Center, an offshoot or affiliated group of the Groden Center in Providence. The building was vacant for only about six months before the new owners purchased the space. As seen in photo 3, they added a new entrance in the “armpit” of the building.

History

A great little complex, these buildings have some nice, simple details. In photo number 5, the bricked in area suggests that there once was a covered gangway to what is now the Paper Source building across the street. The most charming aspect is the rounded corner in photo 6 on the north side of the building. This addition was later than the main body of the building which was present in a 1902 Sanborn Map along with the smokestack and small engine room.

All windows have been upgraded with aluminum replacements pre-2004, but sadly, have squared off the segmented arch.

From “Pawtucket Past and Present, being a brief account of the beginning and progress of its industries and a resume of the early history of the city,” by the Slater Trust Company, 1917

The Smith Webbing Company was incorporated in 1898. It has an equipment of 200 looms, and manufactures narrow fabrics. The officers are: Frank R. Parsons, president; Allan F. Grant, secretary; E. H. Parsons, treasurer.