Sweaters, and Later Microscopes were Made in this Buffalo NY Mill

Monarch Knitting Company Factory, Buffalo New York

Date added: December 30, 2024

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The Monarch Knitting Company Factory was a small-scale textile mill in Buffalo using semi-mill construction, a framing method used for non-excessive floor loads that used heavy timber posts and beams spaced at their greatest distance per load and allowed manufacturers to maximize the space between support columns. It also contains important secondary spaces for cleaning and coloring wool, including a one-and-a-half-story dye house designed to foster airflow and steam ventilation. The Monarch Knitting Company, a Canadian textile firm that specialized in knit sweaters, built the factory as their Buffalo branch in 1912-13, and occupied the building until 1923. During this time, the company steadily expanded the factory with additions in 1916 and 1918. The firm used the factory to dye wool, knit sweaters, and ship products throughout the United States, and by 1919 the factory housed all of the company's industrial processes. The Spencer Lens Company, one of America's first optics firms, purchased the factory in 1926 and vacated the property in 1946. The firm developed and manufactured optical devices such as microscopes and telescopes in the factory, and between 1926 and 1938 the factory was the Spencer Lens Company's sole production facility and corporate offices. In addition to producing optical devices for civilian use, the Spencer Lens Company supplied the American military with range finding devices, medical equipment, gun sights, fire control tools, and other optical instruments during the World Wars.

The Monarch Knitting Company in Buffalo (1912-1923)

The Monarch Knitting Company, a textile company specializing in sweaters and knit outerwear, organized in 1903 in Dunnville, Ontario, Canada. The company formed in response to the growing popularity of sweaters. Prior to 1900, sweaters were primarily used for athletic events such as soccer matches and hockey games, giving sweater manufactures a limited market for their product. However, around 1900, sweaters became a socially acceptable cold weather garment and companies formed to supply the growing demand for knit outerwear. Initially, the Monarch Knitting Company faced competition from inexpensive German imports; however, the company's quality garments, trademarked as Monarch Knit Sweaters, gained popularity and soon outpaced the German sweater manufacturers. The company expanded quickly and within a decade became Dunnville's largest employer with over 500 workers. In that time the Monarch Knitting Company built two additional factories in St. Catharines and St. Thomas, Ontario.

In 1910, the Monarch Knitting Company decided to expand into the United States and leased space for a factory at 885 Niagara Street in Buffalo. Rather than control the Niagara Street factory from Dunnville, the company created a separate corporation under the laws of New York State and managed the factory from New York City. The Niagara Street factory grew rapidly, employing 200 people by 1911 and supplying American jobbers with the company's trademarked sweaters. By 1912, the company had outgrown the Niagara Street factory and sought a new location in Buffalo.

In 1912, the Monarch Knitting Company decided to build a factory on a lot near the tracks of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad at 19 Doat Street. Between 1912 and 1913, contractor Robert E. Williams erected the factory, a $38,000 project. Once completed, the Monarch Knitting Company touted the new factory as "The First and Only Sweater Mill in Buffalo".

The Monarch Knitting Company Factory featured semi-mill construction and incorporated a number of elements the company believed would improve employee welfare. The first floor of the building contained the only finished spaces in the facility, which was largely devoted to knitting equipment. One of the first floor's key finished spaces was a dining room for employees. Women made up the up the majority of the factory's employees, and the company supplied them with a lunch menu as well as pie and coffee for those who brought their own meal. The factory also had a rest room and space for dancing, with music supplied by a Victrola. Both were likely located near the dining hall, as company officers frequently played musical selections for the workers at lunch. Beadboard wall paneling and windows still articulate a central corridor in this section of the building, with offices present on the east side of the hallway. On all floors, long banks of windows admitted fresh air and sunlight, which company leaders believed would maintain a sanitary environment and happy workers. In addition to providing meals, the Monarch Knitting Company staffed the factory with trained nurses to tend to any injured or ill employees and built a four-car garage on the property in 1916 (since demolished) providing ready transportation for any employee who needed to be quickly sent home.

While the first floor of the factory contained large spaces dedicated to worker welfare and company offices, a small portion of the basement was partitioned off for a pair of generators, which supplied electricity to the factory. The second, third and fourth floors were filled with knitting and spinning machinery and these floors consisted of large open floor plates that accommodated rows of machinery.

In 1916, the Monarch Knitting Company expanded the factory, doubling its length to the south. To reduce the risk of a fire consuming the factory, sheet metal-clad fire doors on each floor separated the older and newer portions of the building, a common fire safety design choice at the time. The same doors were present at each of the staircases and are still extant. The company installed shipping and packing departments on the first and second floors of the addition, while the third and fourth floors were used for knitting. The company spent $40,000 on the addition and Robert E. Williams once again oversaw the work.

In 1914, the Monarch Knitting Company faced a major challenge after discovering a Southwestern garment wholesaler had trademarked the word Monarch. Although the company could still sell its Monarch Knit Sweaters in Canada, they could no longer market them in America. As a result of the pre-existing trademark, the Monarch Knitting Company rebranded its American knit goods as Bison-Knit and embarked on sales campaign that emphasized high quality fabric and stylish designs, which to that point had always been of secondary concern to sweater manufacturers. The company introduced new patterns, ornaments, trimmings, and colors and produced advertisements promoting the new sweater lines. The advertisements often featured live models imposed over photographs depicting important events such as the Panama-Pacific Exposition or sporting events such as baseball games and horse races. The marketing campaign, originally conceived to sell goods produced in Buffalo, proved so successful that the company adopted it for its Canadian branches as well.

The success of the Bison-Knit product line allowed the Monarch Knitting Company to further expand the factory. In 1918, the firm spent $22,000 to build a dye house and storehouse with the capacity to dye up to 25,000 pounds of wool as well as a $60,000 boiler plant. The construction of these buildings was partially motivated by the company's desire to compete for war contracts with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. During the war, the company received a $100,000 government contract to manufacture over 500,000 wool puttees, a type of leg wrapping. Construction of the dye house may have also been motivated by the loss of access to German dyes, which were cut off by blockades during World War I. German dyes were considered the best in the world and wartime blockades spurred the development of many dye factories and dye houses in North America.

Following World War I, the Monarch Knitting Company continued to sell its line of sweaters, bathing suits, coats, and hats. The company's selling agents had offices in major cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Atlanta and distributed knit goods to wholesalers throughout the country. By 1922, 500 people worked in the Monarch Knitting Company Factory; however, in 1923 the company decided to pull out of the American market and sold the factory to the Navy Knitting Mill for $350,000. The company had seen a drastic fall in profits after 1919 and it is possible it sold the American plant in an attempt to infuse capital into the business and consolidate manufacturing.

After selling the factory, the Monarch Knitting Company continued to operate in Canada. During World War II, the firm released a pattern book showing Canadian women how to knit sweaters, hats, and other woolens for Canadian G.I.'s fighting in Europe. In 1963 Montex Holdings, a textile firm that specialized in head and footwear, acquired the Monarch Knitting Company. The company bought out the Monarch Knitting Company's stockholders and shut down all of the firm's Canadian plants in 1967, ending the firm's existence.

The Spencer Lens Company (1926-1946)

The Spencer Lens Company purchased the Monarch Knitting Company Factory in 1926, converting the textile mill into an optics manufacturing site. The factory's mill design facilitated this vastly different industry because both textile and optics manufacturing required stringent humidity and dust controls. Because of these similar production concerns the Spencer Lens Company could occupy the mill without significantly modifying the interior layout of the factory. Like the Monarch Knitting Company, the Spencer Lens Company initially used the factory for the majority of its operations, and the factory contained spaces for executive offices, research, product assembly, testing, and shipping, among other functions. The company did not significantly alter the building, as the existing layout accommodated these uses. Twelve years after acquiring the factory, the Spencer Lens Company erected a new manufacturing site in Cheektowaga, New York, and began consolidating operations at the new plant. Nonetheless, the Monarch Knitting Company Factory remained an important site for the company's business until 1946.

The Spencer Lens Company manufactured microscopes, telescopes, and other specialized lenses and was one of the earliest microscope manufacturers in America. Charles Spencer founded the company in 1852 in Canisteo, New York, and in 1895 the firm incorporated in Buffalo with Spencer's son, Herbert, and Dr. Roswell Park as chief officers. Park's influence and position as a professor of surgery at the University at Buffalo helped sustain the company during the early 1900s, and Park promoted the company's optical devices to laboratories, hospitals, and schools.

With Park's financial and marketing support, the company opened its first factory in 1900 inside an 8,000 square foot building at 367 Seventh Street (not extant) in Buffalo's West Side neighborhood. The company began production with fifty employees, but by 1918 the Spencer Lens Company had 500 employees and leased 90,000 square feet in the Niagara Manufacturing Buildings at 442 Niagara Street (not extant). The company shared space in the complex with the Buffalo Manufacturing Company, B.F. Stinson & Company, and a number of unnamed manufacturers.

In 1916, the Spencer Lens Company began producing optical glass from a factory in Hamburg, New York, near the intersection of Pleasant Avenue and the Erie Railroad's tracks (not extant). The company's decision to manufacture optical glass came as a result of World War I and the loss of German glass suppliers. Prior to 1914, American optics firms were primarily supplied with optical glass from Germany and the secrets of optical glass production were closely guarded. Working with independent scientists and the federal government, the Spencer Lens Company devised its own production methods and opened the facility in Hamburg to fill the void of German glass firms. After opening, the Hamburg plant produced roughly 75,000 pounds of optical glass, around twelve percent of the country's wartime glass production. The company sold much of its glass to Bausch & Lomb and the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, where it was used to make range-finding instruments and other supplies for the American Expeditionary Forces.

The Spencer Lens Company's work with government scientists boosted the company's technical capabilities and allowed the firm to build lenses of a size never attempted in the United States. The company's most notable lens was a reflector disc built in 1922 for the Steward Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. The Steward Observatory was built in 1916 under the leadership of Andrew Elliott Douglass, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. Because of World War I, Douglass could not access the European firms that had built lenses for America's other observatories and was forced to find an American optics firm willing to develop the expertise necessary to build a research-quality telescope lens. Douglass selected the Spencer Lens Company and after several failed castings, the firm succeeded in manufacturing a reflector lens large enough for Douglass's purposes. The reflector lens built by the Spencer Lens Company was forty inches in diameter, weighed 900 pounds, and took nine months to complete. The creation of the Spencer Lens Company's reflector disc marked an important moment in American astronomical history, as the Steward Observatory's telescope was the first research telescope built with parts exclusively manufactured in America. The telescope was dedicated in 1923 and the Steward Observatory remained an important dark sky observatory until 1963, when light pollution from Tucson undermined the observatory's capabilities.

In 1926, the Spencer Lens Company purchased the Monarch Knitting Company factory building for $250,000. The purchase allowed the company to increase its output, and by 1927 the firm had 350 employees and annual profits of over $1,000,000. Like the Monarch Knitting Company, the Spencer Lens Company put offices in the 1912 section of the factory; although, instead of a dining hall, the company installed its shipping department alongside the offices. The first floor of the 1916 addition housed the company's laboratory spaces where researchers attempted to improve the company's microscope design by developing schematics and testing experimental lenses. They also communicated with scientists unaffiliated with the company, working to develop better products to meet the changing needs of America's scientific community. The rest of the factory contained a mixture of spaces, some of which featured open floor plans and individual workstations for researchers, draftsmen, and opticians. Other parts of the factory, such as the Metal Working Department. contained heavy machinery used to make microscope frames and stands. Spaces such as the company's Precision Surfacing Department contained rotating belts that polished microscope lenses, some of which were the size of a pinhead, into the proper shape. Lenses were cemented together by hand in a clean air-conditioned room. Inside the room, workers were careful to make sure no dust got affixed to the lenses as they were being cemented together as this would ruin the microscope. After the machined parts and lenses were assembled into a working microscope, company experts tested the completed product, putting it through the same critical assessment an independent scientist would, before sending it to the shipping department for distribution.

In 1935, the American Optical Company of Southbridge, Massachusetts, purchased a majority stake in the Spencer Lens Company, although the firm continued to operate under its own name for another decade. In 1938, the Spencer Lens Company added a die and pattern vault to the factory, and in that same year purchased a twenty-five-acre site in Cheektowaga, New York, where it built a new plant. Initially, the Cheektowaga plant produced mechanical parts while the Monarch Knitting Company Factory continued to house executive offices, research and development divisions, assembly, and inspection departments. However, the Cheektowaga plant expanded throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, and the Spencer Lens Company steadily transferred more employees and departments to the plant. By 1943, around 20 percent of the company's employees worked at 19 Doat Street, and the company planned to consolidate operations in Cheektowaga. That year, the Royal Bedding Company, a mattress manufacturing firm, purchased the building. Instead of vacating the factory immediately, the Spencer Lens Company continued to occupy the building, leasing space from the Royal Bedding Company. This arrangement was necessary because the Spencer Lens Company had multiple war contracts and needed to maximize its military production.

Leading up to and during World War II, the Spencer Lens Company produced equipment for the American armed forces. In 1939, the firm filled a $70,000 order for telescopes and spare parts for the artillery corps, and in 1940 the army paid $43,000 for azimuth instruments. During the war, the Spencer Lens Company supplied the military with range-finding devices, binoculars, microscopes, turret gun sights, periscopes, and fire control instruments. Many of these products were produced at the Cheektowaga plant; however, the company's executive offices and polishing departments occupied the Monarch Knitting Company Factory for the duration of the war. In 1945 the Spencer Lens Company was renamed the Scientific Instruments Division of the American Optical Company and a year later completed its move to Cheektowaga, ending the firm's existence as an independent entity and its tenure in Buffalo.

Subsequent Tenants

After the Spencer Lens Company left the Monarch Knitting Company Factory in 1946, it was owned and occupied by the Royal Bedding Company. Founded in 1923 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the company opened a factory at 18 Hanover Street in Buffalo in 1942, taking over the former Egan-Luth Company Building (not extant). A year later, the company purchased the Monarch Knitting Company Factory, citing a need for more floor space and a desire to expand its workforce.

After the Royal Bedding Company moved into the factory, the firm began modernizing the building. The firm completed a modernization campaign in 1954 that included adding new elevators and unloading facilities. The company also converted some space into a showroom, but it is unclear from existing conditions where this space was located. The company's offices occupied the first floor of the 1912 building while mattresses were built on the first, second, and third floor of the 1916 addition. The company converted the dye house into a shipping building, as reflected by the garage doors on the east side of the dye house. The dye house's sloped concrete floors remain intact and the sloped floor likely aided the company's attempt to use the space for shipping. By 1957, the factory averaged an annual profit of $2,000,000, and mattresses made in the factory were sold throughout the Great Lakes region. The Royal Bedding Company occupied the factory for six decades; however, the firm steadily shrank operations inside the factory and by 2010 used it as a warehouse.

Despite the Royal Bedding Company's modernization campaign and long tenure, the Monarch Knitting Company Factory remains largely intact to its historic period. Important spaces such as the main factory space and dye house retain their configuration as well as the design features such as the factory space's semi-mill construction and dye house's ventilation-oriented design help distinguish the factory as a former textile mill. Additionally, the Royal Bedding Company's mattress product line used weaving and knitting machines similar to the Monarch Knitting Company's machines. It is likely that the Royal Bedding Company arranged its machines in a manner similar to the Monarch Knitting Company and made limited changes to accommodate its equipment. The most significant changes the Royal Bedding Company made to the factory can be seen in the office spaces where wood paneling, carpeting, and drop ceilings were installed in the 1970s. These changes, however, are largely cosmetic as original plaster ceilings and millwork partitions are still present and were only covered by the 1970s modifications.

Under the Royal Bedding Company's ownership, large portions of the factory were leased to other manufacturing concerns. Starting in 1946, the Royal Bedding Company leased 30,000 square feet in the factory to the Bond Clothing Stores. Bond Clothing Stores was a men's clothing company with retail stores and twelve plants throughout the United States. In Buffalo, the company had a store at 369 Main Street. Bond Clothing Stores set up a finishing shop inside the factory and employed over 800 people in coat manufacturing. Bond Clothing Stores was not the only entity to lease space from the Royal Bedding Company. By 1955, a shoe and furniture warehouse occupied most of the 1912 building.

Buffalo's East Side in the Vicinity of Genesee and Doat Streets

The City of Buffalo, New York, was surveyed in 1797 by Joseph Ellicott, the chief surveyor of the Holland Land Company, a consortium of thirteen Dutch investors who purchased much of western New York in 1793. Ellicott's survey showed Buffalo had an advantageous harbor on Lake Erie and a number of nearby rivers and creeks capable of producing waterpower. These water resources indicated Buffalo would make an excellent settlement site and Ellicott laid out streets for the prospective community modeled off the street grid Pierre L'Enfant designed for Washington D.C.

Ellicott's plan centered on Niagara Square and from this central location, streets radiated to the north, east, and west like the spokes of a wheel. Three of these radials, Genesee Street, Sycamore Street, and Broadway, became major thoroughfares in Buffalo's East Side. Genesee Street, which Doat Street branches off from, was particularly important, as it connected Buffalo to the Genesee Road, a roadway used by early settlers moving to western New York.

During the 1830s, Buffalo's core around Niagara Square developed quickly with homes and businesses lining the radial streets. The section of Genesee Street closest to downtown experienced this growth; however, Genesee Street east of Jefferson Avenue (formerly Jefferson Street) remained thinly settled. In 1854, Buffalo annexed forty-two square miles of land, much of it on the East Side, and more neighborhoods developed along Genesee Street, steadily pushing east as the city's population grew. Yet the forefront of development along Genesee Street at this time did not reach the vicinity of Doat Street and the area featured scattered residential development with rarely more than five houses on a given block. At the start of the twentieth century, however, the neighborhood grew rapidly as industrial firms took advantage of local railroad networks and citizens built homes in the area.

The construction of railroad tracks by companies such as the New York Central Railroad and the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad helped spur industrial growth throughout Buffalo's northern and eastern quadrants. After the Civil War, Buffalo experience a boom in railroad construction and by 1887 eleven trunk railroads passed through Buffalo. Of all the railroads that crisscrossed Buffalo, the New York Central Railroad Belt Line played arguably the greatest role in shaping the city. Completed in 1883, the Belt Line circled Buffalo, providing industrialists a transportation route uncoupled from the city's waterfront, where most industry had previously centered." Many companies built factories near the railroad tracks and built rail spurs to allow trains to pull off and load or unload goods on the factory grounds. Other railroad companies built similar looping track networks, among them the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad, which laid tracks at the intersection of Genesee and Doat Streets. However, the railroad's presence did not lead to immediate growth around Genesee and Doat Streets. By 1900, the Jacob Joeckle Lumber Yard (not extant) was the only large industry near the railroad tracks, although this would change during the 1910s and 1920s.

While Sanborn maps from 1900 show limited growth around the intersection of Genesee and Doat Streets, maps from 1939 show a dense mix of industry, commerce, and residences around the intersection. When the Monarch Knitting Company erected its factory in 1912, it was one of the first significant industrial firms to do so, helping to pioneer industrialization in the vicinity of Genesee and Doat Streets. During the late 1910s and 1920s other industrial concerns joined the Monarch Knitting Company around Genesee and Doat Streets; these included the Bettinger Coal & Coke Corporation (1929), the City Ice & Fuel Company (factory built circa 1920), the Teachout Company (1921, factory extant), the Kendall Refining Company (1918), and the Evans Lumber Company (built circa 1920), all of which erected factories along the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad tracks. The emergence of industry around Genesee and Doat Streets simulated population growth, and by 1939 side streets such as Montana Avenue, Nevada Avenue, and Kilhoffer Street were lined with homes. While industrial buildings were primarily built alongside the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad's tracks and houses lined the side streets, Genesee Street itself developed into a vibrant commercial corridor. Two-to-three-story commercial buildings lined the street, as did buildings like the Genesee Theater, a 1,600-seat movie palace that opened in 1927. The theater anchored the block just east of the intersection of Genesee and Doat Streets.

Ethnically, German immigrants and their descendants dominated the neighborhood around Genesee and Doat Streets. Street names such as Rhine Street (later renamed Bissell Street) and Danube Street (later renamed Goodyear Street) point to German influence in the area. In addition to street names, German immigrants created religious spaces such as Concordia Cemetery (1859), which served as the burial grounds for three German congregations: First Trinity Lutheran Church, St. Peter's Evangelical Church, and St. Stephen's Evangelical Church. In 1892, the Reverends August Senne and John Sieck organized the Gethsemane Lutheran Church at 427 Goodyear Avenue (extant), with the intention of forming the first English speaking Lutheran congregation on the East Side. Both men quickly realized that most of their worshipers spoke German and started to preach their sermons in German. While the congregation began with only twenty members, by 1903 450 people worshiped at the church and by 1909 the congregation numbered 1,000 people. In 1911, a second German Lutheran church called the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Resurrection opened at 5 Doat Street. The congregation grew quickly and in 1925 it demolished the original church and erected a new church, capable of seating 500 people on the same lot.

The rapid growth of these congregations reflects the overall growth of the area. In 1890, census data for the eighteenth ward, a large district bound by Jefferson Avenue, East Delevan Street, Walden Avenue, and the city limits had 31,303 people within its borders. In 1910 the ward was redrawn as the twelfth ward with boundaries at the New York Central Railroad Belt Line, East Delevan Street, Broadway, and Buffalo's city limits. This significantly smaller district contained 24,542 people.

With Genesee Street serving as a major commercial thoroughfare and transportation artery to downtown Buffalo, the area around the intersection of Genesee and Doat Streets flourished in the early twentieth century. Though largely a residential neighborhood, factories such as the Monarch Knitting Company Factory and the City Ice & Fuel Company Factory (extant, 200 Rapin Place) provided jobs and helped sustain the neighborhood for decades. However, starting in the 1950s, Buffalo's economy began to contract as industry left the city and longtime residents departed for the suburbs. Deindustrialization and suburbanization hit the area around Genesee and Doat Streets and the neighborhood presently suffers from high levels of housing vacancies and problems related to substance abuse.

Builders and Architects of the Monarch Knitting Mill
Robert E. Williams (Builder)

Robert E. Williams was a Canadian born general contractor who operated in Buffalo from circa 1912 to 1939. During this time, Williams developed a successful firm with offices in the Iroquois Building in downtown Buffalo (not extant). Williams's contracts included commercial buildings, factories, and a number of large churches he erected in the 1920s. Circa 1933, Williams's son, Frederick, joined the firm, which they renamed R.E. Williams & Son Incorporated. After Frederick joined the firm, Williams completed some of his largest contracts.

The Monarch Knitting Company hired Williams to erect the factory at 19 Doat Street in 1912, and the factory is his first known contract in Buffalo. Williams doubled the length of the factory in 1916 and built a small garage at the factory that same year. In 1916 Williams also built a two-story brick commercial building at 234 Delaware Avenue (not extant), a one-story commercial building at 245 Delaware Avenue (not extant), and a three-story boys' home at 261 Delaware Avenue (not extant). In 1918, The Monarch Knitting Company hired Williams to build the boiler plant and storage buildings at 19 Doat Street. Williams also built the Central Park Methodist Episcopal Church in 1921 (extant), the Parkside Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1924 (extant), a building at 190 Delaware Avenue (not extant) in 1925, the Kenmore Methodist Episcopal Church in 1927 (extant), the University Presbyterian Church in 1928 (extant), and Buffalo Public School 4 in 1930 (extant). In 1934, Williams completed his largest contract, building Kensington High School for $745,000 (extant). Another large contract came in 1937, when he built the Irwin B. Clark Memorial Gymnasium for the University at Buffalo (extant) for $350,000. The last known contract completed by Robert E. Williams came in 1939 when he built the Cazenovia Park Baptist Church (extant).

William Elmer Seibert Dyer (Mill Engineer and Architect) 1880-1957

William Elmer Seibert Dyer (professionally abbreviated to W.E.S. Dyer) was a mill engineer and architect from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who designed the 1918 additions to the Monarch Knitting Company Factory. Dyer advertised himself as an expert on the construction of factories, mills, power plants, and other industrial buildings and claimed to have designed over 800 buildings in eighteen years. In addition to erecting buildings, Dyer also designed power systems for factories. Dyer conducted much of his business around Philadelphia, where he designed several textile mills, including the Fred Pearson & Company Factory (extant); the Joseph R. Foster & Sons Factory, which specialized in worsted and wool yarns (not extant); and the Saxonia Dress Goods Mill (extant). One of Dyer's buildings, the Richard L. Wallace Plant (not extant), bore a strong resemblance to the Monarch Knitting Company's dye house. Both featured a gabled roof surmounted by a monitor, as well as openings on the side elevations to provided light and ventilation for the workspace. In 1939, Dyer was arrested and charged with tax fraud after reporting his income for 1930-31 as $37,000 when, in reality, he had earned $126,000 that year. Dyer was convicted in 1940 and forced to pay a $5,000 fine in addition to his back taxes. Following the case, Dyer's career appears to have ended. W.E.S. Dyer passed away in 1957 at the age of seventy-seven.

Site Description

The Monarch Knitting Company Factory is located in the City of Buffalo, Erie County, New York. Consisting of a large brick industrial building with several additions and a separate, freestanding brick chimney, the factory sits on a two-acre parcel just east of the southeast corner of Genesee and Doat Streets in Buffalo's East Side, three-and-a-half miles northeast of downtown and one-half mile northeast of Frederick Law Olmsted's Martin Luther King Jr. Park. Genesee Street, a primary traffic radial in this part of the city, runs northeast to southwest and was once a primary commercial strip on the East Side, although it has since declined and is now somewhat sparsely populated with a mix of residences and small commercial enterprises. Doat Street is a short, east-west traffic corridor that branches off of Genesee Street at an acute angle and contains a mix of residential and commercial properties along with a number of empty lots. The surrounding area in each direction is primarily residential and composed of frame housing stock that dates from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. One block east of the intersection of Genesee Street and Doat Street, however, a rail spur runs due north and has light industrial enterprises located to either side. The Monarch Knitting Company Factory occupies a parcel half a block in size, bordered by Doat Street to the north, Lansdale Place to the south, Rustic Place to the west, and a narrow portion of Concordia Cemetery between it and the rail spur to the east. Its sprawling components are concentrated in the southwest quadrant of the parcel, built to the lot line, with asphalt paving and parking areas in the northeast quadrant.

In 1912, the Monarch Knitting Company erected the original building at the northwest corner of the parcel, facing north onto Doat Street. It measures six bays wide by fourteen bays deep and is a four-story, red brick, factory building with a raised basement and a flat roof. In 1916, the Monarch Knitting Company doubled the building in size with a thirteen-bay addition in an identical style that extended south to the lot line at Lansdale Place. Permit cards indicate that a four-car garage was also built in 1916 east of the factory at the southern lot line, but this structure is no longer extant. A dye house, boiler house, and storehouse were then added and connected to the main factory building in 1918 at the southeast corner of the lot. The east-west oriented dye house extends east from the center of the 1916 portion of the factory and is a double-height brick building measuring five bays wide by four bays deep with a large roof monitor along its spine. It is connected at the rear to the factory via a short, single-story, brick passage. The boiler house is the smallest of the facility's components and is a two-story wing measuring two bays wide by three bays deep with a flat roof. It is oriented north-south and sits twenty feet south of the west end of the dye house along the southern lot line of the parcel. The dye house and boiler house are the most ornamented additions with glazed yellow brick picking out the windows and cornices of the building, contrasting with the rest of the dark brick exterior. The storehouse is more utilitarian in appearance and consists of a single-story volume built of a mix of hollow clay tile and concrete masonry units with a flat roof. It occupies the space between the south end of the main factory, the south wall of the dye house, and the west wall of the boiler house, though set back thirty feet from the southern lot line; as such, it acts as an internal connection between the different portions of the facility. On the interior, the building has large, open, light-filled spaces as is typical for early factory buildings, with painted brick walls, hardwood floors, regular timber columns, and exposed wood ceiling decks throughout. The structure was in nearly constant use from 1913 until 2010.

The Factory Building - 1912-1916

The factory building consists of the 1912 portion of the building together with the identical 1916 addition at the south end, which forms one long, continuous edifice. Facing north onto Doat Street, it measures five bays wide by twenty-seven bays deep, and stretches from Doat Street at the north end to Lansdale Street at the south and is built to the lot line at each side. The building is a modestly articulated, turn-of-the-twentieth-century, semi-mill construction factory with exterior walls of load-bearing red brick, a heavy-timber framed interior, and a flat roof. It rises four stories in height over a raised basement with a three-foot-high fieldstone foundation and is wrapped at the top by a simple parapet with camel-back clay tile coping. Each side of the building has regular windows in each bay and a concrete sill and segmentally arched brick sill at each opening. Throughout, almost all of the original windows remain in place at the first and second stories and most are wood, double-hung windows with a six-light upper sash and a nine-light lower sash. At the third and fourth stories, only a few openings have original windows remaining and the remainder are filled in with plywood. On the east elevation of the building, two original stair towers are present, one at the south end and one at the center. A third tower containing a freight elevator was added just north of center in the 1950s and has a single-story corrugated metal loading bay wrapping the base.

The three-bay primary facade is simply and symmetrically composed with regular windows in each bay at each floor level. In the center bay, the main entry is located in a wide, segmentally arched opening at grade, straddling the raised basement and first stories. The opening contains a tall, segmentally arched transom at the top, (currently covered over with plywood) and a pair of original wood doors below, each with a solid panel in the bottom third and a glazed panel in the upper two-thirds. A small, narrow opening containing an original, double-hung, four-over-one window is present to either side of the entry, its lintel height aligned with that of the entry. The remainder of the elevation has two openings in each bay with short openings at the basement and identical openings in each bay of each story at the first through fourth stories. The first-story bays each contain one-over-one double-hung windows at the front portion as the administrative offices were historically located at this end of the building and had a higher level of finish. The second-story openings each contain six-over-two sash windows while the remaining floors have plywood infill at all of the window openings. At the outside edges, the corners of the building are framed with brick quoins.

The twenty-seven-bay west elevation consists of the 1912 and 1916 portions of the factory, with the brick seam of the two portions faintly visible just south of center. Its long and continuous elevation faces Rustic Place and is made up of regular repeating bays. The bays on this side of the building each consist of two windows at the basement, first, and second stories with wider openings at the third and fourth stories containing paired windows. Just south of center, the two northernmost bays of the 1916 addition are slightly different and both have a wide door opening with a flat lintel at grade, straddling the basement and first stories, and paired windows in each of the bays above. Of the two door openings, the northern one is infilled with plywood but the southern one contains its original pair of wood doors and flanking sidelights, all with a solid wood panel in the lower third and a multi-pane glazed panel above. At the north end of the building, as on the primary facade, the first-story window openings corresponding to the original administrative offices have double-hung, one-over-one sash while the remainder of the first and second-story openings have six-over-nine sash.

The rear elevation is composed of five regular bays with the southern stair tower forming a sixth bay at the east end. To the west, the elevation is articulated by brick quoins at the corner and consists of regular bays matching those at the side elevations flanking a center bay with a large door opening at each floor. The first-story door opening appears to have been altered and has a modern, flat brick lintel and contains an overhead garage door. At the second and third floors above, the wide brick openings each has a segmentally arched brick lintel and contains a pair of original wood doors with multi-light glazing in the upper two-thirds and a solid panel at the base. The fourth story opening is identical but contains original wood louvers instead of a pair of doors. At the east end, the stair tower bay has regular openings aligned along the eastern edge, consisting of a single door opening at grade and three windows rising above it, lighting the intermediate landings of an interior stair.

The east elevation is largely identical to the west elevation with the exception that it includes three projecting vertical circulation towers. The southernmost and center towers are both stair towers original to the building. Each of these has single windows aligned along the southern edge, lighting interior stair landings, while the northern side contains a wide, double door opening at each floor level. On the center tower, each door opening has a pair of original wood doors with multi-light glazing in the upper two thirds and a solid panel at the base. The southern of the two stair towers was altered to accommodate a passenger elevator and so its door openings are filled in and it has a solid brick extension to the north matching the brick of the third, non-original tower. This third tower is an elevator tower dating to the 1950s, which is located two bays north of the central tower. It is solid red face brick on each side in a lighter shade than the historic brick and rises approximately fifteen feet higher than the original stair towers. At the base, it is wrapped on its three projecting sides by a steel and corrugated metal loading dock in rather poor condition.

Although the building has changed hands several times over the course of its life, the interior remains quite intact to its historic appearance. Currently, it is being used primarily as a warehouse and so no new partitions have been added, leaving the rooms open, as they would have been originally.

The first floor of the building contains an entry vestibule at the front (north) end, just inside the primary entry doors, and a largely historic office layout at the first eight bays. The remainder of the first floor along with the whole of the second, third, and fourth floors is given over to open manufacturing space. Two staircases located inside the original stair towers at the center and southern end of the eastern wall provide the primary vertical circulation for the building. An original freight elevator is located just north of center of the building, as it was originally installed at the south wall of the original 1912 portion of the building. A second freight elevator is located in the mid-century elevator tower just north of center on the east wall.

At the first floor, the entry vestibule has a landing and a short flight of stairs leading from grade up to the first floor. The doors are original and original wood baseboard wraps the small room while modern, painted faux paneling is present at the walls and the floor is carpeted. At the top of the stairs there is a large lobby or reception space surrounded on each side by offices. Though a few new partitions have been added at this area, the historic office floorplan remains largely intact. Currently there is a dropped ceiling, carpeted floors, and 1970s era paneling throughout this space and surrounding offices; however, some investigation has revealed that the original plaster ceilings are intact above the dropped ceilings and that historic, borrowed-light, millwork partitions are still present beneath the 1970s paneling. Additionally, an original concrete-encased metal safe remains built into the southwest corner of the lobby. From the lobby, a wide, double-loaded corridor extends south to about the center of the building and has offices of varying size to either side and borrowed-light transoms with millwork casings in several locations. Many of the offices have plaster walls with painted wood trim, casings, and original panel doors and several also feature large borrowed-light glazing with painted millwork casings. At the north end of the corridor there is an original stairwell and wood stair that leads to the basement level and is wrapped on three sides by an original painted wood railing with straight, slender spindles and a molded wood handrail. At the south end of the corridor along the west wall, there are two very large rooms which were likely historically a dining area and a recreation area for the mill workers as both of these spaces are mentioned in early newspaper articles regarding the building. Currently the historic finishes of both rooms are obscured by faux paneling at the walls, dropped ceilings, and carpet or vinyl tile over the floors. Beyond the existing finishes though, there are plaster walls and flat plaster ceilings and the southern of the two spaces has borrowed-light glazing with painted millwork casings at its northern and eastern walls.

The upper floors and the remainder of the first floor are each similar in appearance. Each consists of a large, open volume punctuated by regularly spaced, square, timber columns supporting exposed wood decking at the ceiling, with painted brick walls and original maple hardwood flooring throughout. All of the wood structure and decking has been painted white, making the spacious interior volumes very bright. At the first floor and the basement of the building, the floor is concrete. In some locations, original enameled steel pendant light fixtures still hang from the ceiling, and while some piping and ducting are present and exposed, both are minimal and have little impact on the appearance.

In both of the stair towers there is a wide wood stair with wood treads and risers, hardwood floor at the landings, and simple, linear, painted wood handrails and square newel posts. The walls of the stair towers are brick and appear to retain the original paint scheme - a dark green following at the lower portion following the run of the stair and white above. On each floor, both stairwell entries retain their original, sheet metal-clad fire door on a counterweight.

The Dye House - 1918

The single-story dye house is rectangular in shape and two bays in width across its eastern face by five bays deep. It faces east onto the open yard of the lot and is connected at its west end to the 1916 portion of the factory by a small enclosed brick passage. The building has exterior walls of load-bearing masonry in polychrome red and glazed yellow brick, a tall original monitor that runs the length of its spine, and heavy timber interior framing.

On its primary eastern elevation, the dye house has two wide loading bays in simple brick openings with overhead garage doors. Both openings appear to have been altered as the lintels are flat and constructed of a nonmatching, lighter-colored red brick. At the center of the east elevation, the large roof monitor is expressed as a second story with a pair of arched windows and a slight gabled roofline. The side elevations of the dye house are simple and symmetrical and each of the five bays contains two wide, full-height window openings with a segmentally arched lintel. On each side, the building is wrapped by a parapet with a decorative motif composed of alternating squares and rectangles of glazed yellow brick, capped by a terra cotta coping in a matching yellow glazing. Additionally, the arched brick lintel and canted brick sill of each of the windows is carried out in the same glazed yellow brick. On the east elevation, the pair of arched openings at the face of the monitor both retain their original six-light fixed-sash windows. On the side elevations, most of the openings are filled in with plywood or metal panels, but some still retain their original pair of tall, triple-hung, six-light wood sash. The monitor along the spine of the building also retains all of its original twelve-light wood sash windows but these are currently covered over with roofing material.

The interior of the dye house is a single large open volume that was originally lit both by the large windows at the north and south sides as well as the tall monitor above. It has a concrete floor throughout with a slight slope to facilitate the drainage of water and painted brick walls. Overhead, it has an impressive ceiling constructed of timber trusses supporting original beadboard ceilings at the outer third on each side and the tall, open roof monitor at the center. Similar to the factory spaces, the wood structure and brick perimeter of the dye house interior has been painted in light colors to amplify the effect of the light. All of the original windows remain at the monitor overhead although roofing material at the exterior obscures their light. Back at the ground, several original triple-hung six-light sash also remain in place at the south wall though their light is blocked by the presence of the storehouse beyond. At the center of the west wall, there is a wide door opening with a pair of original steel fire doors; the doorway connects the dye house to the main factory building via a short passage. A door at the west end of the south wall connects the dye house directly to the adjacent storehouse.

The Boiler House - 1918

The boiler house is two bays wide across its primary southern face by three bays deep and faces south onto Lansdale Place. Built concurrently with the dye house, it is two stories in height with a flat roof and has the same polychrome red and yellow brick at its exterior walls. The boiler house is simply and symmetrically composed and all elevations are similar. On each side, double-height bays with large openings are framed by brick piers. On the east and west elevations, each bay contains a double-height opening with a brick sill, a heavy trabeated limestone lintel and a band of diamond-patterned corbelled brick across the top. On the southern elevation, the two bays each contain a large opening at the first and second floor with the same lintel and corbelling at the second floor and a brick spandrel panel separating the two openings between floors. Above, the building is wrapped by a polychrome parapet matching that at the dye house. A single vertical row of glazed yellow brick is picked out at the second story of each of the piers, centered on the glazed yellow squares at the parapet.

The interior of the boiler house is a single, open, double-height volume. The space is utilitarian and has a concrete floor, exposed brick walls, and a wood plank ceiling with steel trusses and slender steel purlins. The space is currently used for storage purposes. The interior of the boiler room appears to have historically been connected to the storehouse at the northwest corner of the boiler house wall, but that opening is now filled in.

Chimney - 1918

North of the boiler house and just south of the dye house is the original freestanding cylindrical chimney stack.

The stack rises approximately five stories in height and is built of glazed cream-colored brick, rising from a base about fifteen feet in diameter and tapering to twelve feet at the top.

The only visible elevation of the storehouse is its southern face which stretches from the west wall of the boiler house to the east wall of the factory. This elevation was originally an interior wall of the 1916 garage that is no longer extant and is composed of hollow-clay tile with red brick and a non-original, flat fascia board at the flat roof. An original brick opening is present at the center and contains a modern flush metal door, while a second original brick opening at the east end has been filled in with concrete masonry units. Aligned along the western edge is a garage door opening containing an overhead door.

On the interior, the storehouse is utilitarian in appearance. It has exposed brick and hollow clay tile at the walls with a concrete floor and modern steel bar joists at the ceiling. Currently, it serves as a storage location for automobiles. The north wall of the boiler house abuts the south wall of the dye house and the two are connected via a doorway at the west end of the dye house wall.