Our Manufacturing History Churning Once Again.
American Locomotive Works, originally developed between the 1880s and 1960s, has
a storied history of ownership, use and change. The site encompasses two groups
of buildings that were combined under the ownership of U.S. Rubber in 1918 -
the U.S. Rubber Complex and Nicholson File.
The U.S. Rubber Complex
Dating back to 1885, the U.S. Rubber Complex Building was originally designed for
the Rhode Island Locomotive Works (RILW). In 1901, American Locomotive Company,
the second largest builder of steam locomotives in the U.S., purchased RILW and
added several new buildings to manufacture trucks and cars. In 1896, the property
was sold to the Joseph Banigan Rubber Company and new buildings were erected to
create a plant for the manufacture of rubber footwear. In 1898, the project was
sold to a division of U.S. Rubber and began production orders for rubber goods, most
notably balloons for military use. U.S. Rubber continued to expand in the 1920s and
1930s with the additional manufacture of golf balls, dip goods and rubber thread.
The plant remained part of the Rhode Island manufacturing industry until the mid
1970s.
Nicholson File
A major manufacturing firm in Providence, The Nicholson File Company was founded
by William Thomas Nicholson in 1864. Upon incorporating, the company erected the
plant and began making commercial files. Because of their superior quality, the
Nicholson Increment Cut Files quickly became the "standard files of America." The
business grew, and increased facilities resulted in the manufacture of fine files
for jewelers and watchmakers. Despite Nicholson's unexpected death in 1893, the
Nicholson File Company became the world's largest file factory by the turn of the
century. By the 1960s, the Nicholson File Company was a major player in both the
domestic and overseas markets. In October 1972, the company merged with Cooper
Industries.