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New England Westinghouse Company

1915 establishments in MassachusettsFirearm manufacturers of the United StatesManufacturing companies based in Springfield, MassachusettsManufacturing companies established in 1915Stevens Arms
Westinghouse Electric Company
East Springfield Works, 1912 newspaper advertisement
East Springfield Works, 1912 newspaper advertisement

The New England Westinghouse Company is a former division of Westinghouse Electric. It was founded in 1915 in East Springfield, Massachusetts. Its primary purpose was to fulfill a contract to produce 1.8 million Mosin–Nagant rifles for Czar Nicholas II of Russia during World War I. In order to produce the rifles, they purchased the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts on 1 July 1916 and acquired all its holdings which included firearms and tool manufacturing facilities, and the Stevens-Duryea automobile factory. They sold the tool manufacturing portion of Stevens and shut down production of Stevens-Duryea automobiles and civilian firearms. The remaining Stevens firearms facility was renamed the J Stevens Arms Company and its machinery was retooled to meet the Mosin–Nagant contract. After some 770,000 rifles had been produced, the Czar was deposed in March 1917. Nonetheless, the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. still under the direction of Provisional Government Ambassador Boris Bakhmeteff, made financial arrangements with the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Treasury Department on 20 December 1917 for National City Bank to make payments of $325,000 to the Remington Company for rifles and $2,075,000 to J.P. Morgan in connection with a Westinghouse arms contract.The company entered hard times and started producing M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles at the former Stevens-Duryea factory that was originally constructed for car manufacturing in 1912. In 1920 they sold the J Stevens Arms Company to Savage Arms but kept the automobile factory for use producing commercial products for Westinghouse Electric. In 1921, the Stevens-Duryea factory was the location of the first broadcasts of WBZ (AM), the first commercial radio station in the United States.New England Westinghouse was dissolved on 8 October 1926 by the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Westinghouse continued to operate the facility until its closure, with a foundry and knitting company operating at the factory location. The buildings were demolished (with the exception of the Westinghouse office building along Page Blvd.) and the land cleared in 2010, with the eventual goal of placing a mixed development on the site.In 2009–2011, Ameristar Casinos (now under Pinnacle Entertainment) acquired use of this property for a $910 million resort casino, paying $16 million for the property. However, the proposal was eventually dropped in the face of competition from MGM and Penn National Gaming, who also wanted to build casinos in Springfield. MGM would eventually win the rights to build in Springfield.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article New England Westinghouse Company (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

New England Westinghouse Company
Stevens Street, Springfield

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N 42.140002777778 ° E -72.555847222222 °
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CRRC Springfield Rail Car Manufacturing Plant

Stevens Street
01104 Springfield
Massachusetts, United States
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East Springfield Works, 1912 newspaper advertisement
East Springfield Works, 1912 newspaper advertisement
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New Bay Diner Restaurant
New Bay Diner Restaurant

The New Bay Diner Restaurant is a historic diner in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was manufactured by the Mountain View Diners Company in Signac, New Jersey (as #532) in 1957; it is believed to be the second-to-last diner the company built before it shut down later that year. The diner is attached to a concrete block structure which houses the kitchen and restrooms, and appears to also date to 1957. At the time of its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, it was one of six surviving Mountain View diners in Massachusetts, and the only diner remaining in Springfield.When the diner was listed in Springfield's 1964 business directory, it was called the New Bay Diner Restaurant, and its owner was listed as Anthony Viamare of Granby, Massachusetts. Viamare owned it until 1988, when it was acquired by Donald Roy. He changed its name to the "Route 66 Diner", which is its present name. The diner is of steel frame construction, seven window bays wide, with rounded corners. It is mounted on a concrete and brick foundation, has red horizontal banding, and a rounded rubber membrane roof. The doors are steel and glass, although elements of the vestibule do not appear to be original. Its windows are plate glass, separated by steel pilasters. There are signs on the roof, facing east and west, with the diner's name, "Route 66 Diner"; the "Diner" is highlighted in neon. Inside, the diner has a full length counter, with staff access points at the center and the left side. Access to the kitchen is by a door in the center. The diner has seventeen stools and six booths. Its interior decoration is largely original; the countertop has been replaced.

History of Springfield, Massachusetts
History of Springfield, Massachusetts

The history of Springfield, Massachusetts dates back to the colonial period, when it was founded in 1636 as Agawam Plantation, named after a nearby village of Algonkian-speaking Native Americans. It was the northernmost settlement of the Connecticut Colony. The settlement defected from Connecticut after four years, however, later joining forces with the coastal Massachusetts Bay Colony. The town changed its name to Springfield, and changed the political boundaries among what later became the states of New England. The decision to establish a settlement sprang in large part from its favorable geography, situated on a steep bluff overlooking the Connecticut River's confluence with three tributaries. It was a Native American crossroad for two major trade routes: Boston-to-Albany and New York City-to-Montreal. Springfield also sits on some of the northeastern United States' most fertile soil.Springfield flourished for the decades after its founding, operating as a trading post surrounding by numerous colonial farmsteads. The nearby Indian tribes were gradually displaced by colonial settlement and by the late 17th century became gradually confined to a palisaded fort on Long Hill. During King Philip's War, a pan-tribal effort to expel the colonists from their settlements in New England, a successful Indian attack on Springfield destroyed the settlement. After being rebuilt, Springfield's prosperity waned for the next hundred years but, in 1777, Revolutionary War leaders made it a National Armory to store weapons, and in 1795 it began manufacturing muskets. Until 1968, the Armory made small arms. Its first American muskets (1794) were followed by the famous Springfield rifle and the revolutionary M1 Garand and M14s. The Springfield Armory attracted generations of skilled laborers to the city, making it the United States' longtime center for precision manufacturing (comparable to a Silicon Valley of the Industrial Revolution). The Armory's near-capture during Shays Rebellion of 1787 was among the troubles that prompted the U.S. Constitutional Convention later that year.Innovations in the 19th and 20th centuries include the first American English dictionary (1805, Noah Webster), the first use of interchangeable parts and the assembly line in manufacturing (1819, Thomas Blanchard), the first American horseless car (1825, again Thomas Blanchard), vulcanized rubber (1844, Charles Goodyear), the first American gasoline-powered car (1893, Duryea Brothers), the first American motorcycle company (1901, "Indian"), an early commercial radio station (1921, WBZ), and most famously, the world's third-most-popular sport of basketball (1891, Dr. James Naismith).