Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts factory

History > Jamaica Plain

The lack of room and inconvenience of the city led to Benjamin Sturtevant opening his first factory, three miles outside downtown Boston. The above illustration shows the factory in 1895. The six acre site was a collection of one and two story brick buildings situated near the Jamaica Plain station of the Providence Railroad.

Following Sturtevant's move to the much larger Hyde Park factory in 1903, hastened by a very destructive fire in 1901, two emerging transportation industries of that era would find a home here. In 1904, the short-lived Napier Motor Co of Boston began automobile manufacturing that continued till 1909. Sturtevant briefly returned during WW1 with their Sturtevant Aeroplane aircraft subsidiary (1915-1919). Both businesses are forgotten footnotes in local and industry history.

The remnant that remains exists now as the Jamaica Plain Business Center.