| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation-Public History.
City of Green Bay, Wisconsin - Architectural and Historical Intensive Survey Report Phase 1 - 2021
Parallel gables facing front with valley between filled with flat roofed addition at a later date. All windows have segmental arched window heads. Gable ends are closed by a common, corbelled brick beltcourse. Historic function: manufactured rugs woven from grasses collected in wetlands around Green bay. Related buildings: 1218-1226 Velp Ave. (28/3, 06); 1206-1208 Velp Ave. (28/4).
Surveyed February 2008, no change in appearance.
The Willow Grass Rug Company made rugs from reed grass cut from the marshes in nearby Green Bay. In the mid-1920s, the manufacturing plant was sold to the Central Wire Cloth Company, which used the same equipment for a similar product. Since the 1940s, a number of different manufacturing firms have operated in portions of this complex.
The current owners, Alwin Manufacturing Company, have operated out of this building since the 1940s.
In 1910, A. B. Fontaine organized the Willow Grass Rug Company and two years later constructed a large one-story building on a 7-acre site located at 1218-1226 Velp Avenue in Green Bay. The company cut grass in Brown County and processed it in these buildings, making woven rugs for consumers. The company expanded to the rear with a matching brick addition in 1919.
In 1924, the Central Wire Cloth Company bought the business and sold it again in the late 1940s. At that time, the Green Bay Box Company occupied the eastern building, an auto body repair shop was in the western building, and Wisconsin Wholesaler occupied the warehouses on the north side of the site. A fire in 1951 destroyed many of the warehouse buildings in the rear, which were then replaced. After the fire, the Alwin Manufacturing Company, which produced custom-designed dispensing units for paper napkins, occupied most of the site, moving from another location in Green Bay.
The single-story brick building stretched out along Velp Avenue and the adjoining brick buildings to the east, all have high levels of architectural integrity possessing their original materials, organization, and fenestration.
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Abrahams, Paul P. Industrial Survey of Brown County Industrial Sites, Historical Industrial Survey. Unpublished manuscript on file, Historic Preservation Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
(B) Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Inc. Fire Insurance Map of Green Bay, Wisconsin. New Yrok, 1957. |
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