Dietz Kerosene Lanterns were Once Manufactured in this NY Building

R.E. Dietz Company Factory, Syracuse New York

Date added: December 11, 2024

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The R.E. Dietz Factory Building is a late nineteenth/early twentieth-century factory in Syracuse, and was a prominent manufacturer of lanterns and lighting products. Although Syracuse is often identified as the "Salt City," a reference to the role that industry played in the city's early development, it was the economic transportation corridor created by the Erie Canal and the railroads that brought about the city's great nineteenth-century prosperity by facilitating the efficient transportation of goods through the center of the state: from Buffalo to Albany and then south on the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean at the port of New York. Based on its central location on the canal, Syracuse became a hub of commercial and industrial activity. After 1860, the railroads surpassed the canals in shaping the city's development patterns, attracting even more commercial and industrial companies. The R.E. Dietz Company was one of a number of companies that located along the canal and railroad corridor in a residential/commercial neighborhood just west of downtown known as Park Avenue, which provided easy access both to transportation and to workers, who lived in the surrounding blocks and could walk to work. The Dietz company was established in Brooklyn in 1840 by Robert E. Dietz, who is credited with the invention of the kerosene lantern in 1853. Almost from its inception and throughout its history in Syracuse, the R.E. Dietz Company was the acknowledged leader in the manufacturer of lanterns and lighting products, receiving numerous patents, providing lighting for the construction of the Panama Canal, and proving a pioneer in the automobile lamp industry. After evolving through numerous partnerships involving brothers, sons, and nephews of R.E. Dietz, a company operated by Dietz's son Frederick was left without a manufacturing space after an 1897 fire in its Greenwich Village factory. Frederick Dietz then decided to buy out his closest competitor, the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, which had itself recently relocated to Syracuse from Rochester. Dietz acquired the site and existing factories on Wilkinson Street in 1898, expanding and replacing them as the business grew. The complex, which includes wings constructed in at least eight stages between 1892 and the 1940s, is constructed of brick in a variation of mill construction. Mill construction, popular from the 1870s through the early twentieth century, is characterized by masonry walls and large, heavy timber frames that were specifically designed to slow the spread of fires, and thick plank floors laid atop the joists. Unlike typical mill construction, in this case, the masonry walls were not load-bearing but interdependent with the timber frame. This method, known as "skeleton timber slow burning mill construction," allowed for thinner walls, larger windows, and more open interiors, and can be seen as part of the transition to curtain wall construction. In 1956 the Dietz family established R.E. Dietz Co., LTD in Hong Kong to redevelop a large world lantern market and equipment began to move from Syracuse to Hong Kong.

Industry in Syracuse

Salt was an essential commodity and the salt springs near Onondaga Lake became the source for salt that was traded, first by the Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois and later by eastern settlers who moved into the area after the American Revolution. For much of first half of the nineteenth century, salt and salt related industries composed the economic base of the region and were responsible for the growth of Syracuse, which incorporated as a city in 1848. After the Civil War the salt industry began to decline and in its place scores of diverse industries began to drive the booming local economy. As the salt flats were abandoned, the area was opened up for redevelopment. In 1899, an article in the Syracuse Evening Herald announced that a large new knitting mill was to be constructed on West Division Street, on the site of former salt vats, near the Oswego Canal. Local businessmen, Charles E. Crouse and Adolph G. Velasko, teamed up to start the Oak Knitting Company.

Syracuse did not suffer for lack of salt because numerous other industries were ready to replace it in the area economy. An 1874 map notes such diverse products as steel, mowers, knives, agricultural implements, steam engines, organs, and melodeons, furniture, cigars, glass, boots, shoes, soap, candles, boxes, and moldings, beer, mills, iron, caskets, bikes, gears. During the early 1900s at least 87 large industries were scattered though the city. The largest of them were along Erie Boulevard (the former route of the Erie Canal) and the city line and around the shore of Lake Ontario. In the 1905 industrial census of the United States, Syracuse ranked twenty-third among cities in the number of manufacturing establishments. And, by 1909, information gathered by the chamber of commerce reported that 305 manufacturers in the city employed over 30,000 workers, noting that only a portion of the industries had responded. Also in 1909, the state factory department inspected 537 factories in the city, and even as later as 1939 there were at least 275 different products manufactured in the city.

Kerosene Lamps

The need for light was a basic component of human progress and the centuries before the introduction of electricity were marked by a series of improvements on the basic lantern, which was characterized by a fuel source in a container and a wick, later topped with a globe. It was these inexpensive oil and kerosene lanterns that made western expansion and growth of the United States possible. These lighting devices also provided the means for other industries to expand, as they were no longer restricted to working in daylight hours, and they helped underground industries, such as mining, to become feasible. The three basic lanterns types were the oil lamp, the gas lamp, and the kerosene lamp, which were used over centuries, gradually improved, and then faded in importance as electricity proved far superior.

The advanced oil lamp (Argand Lamp), which could use a variety of fuels, dates to the eighteenth century and had a cylindrical wick and a glass tube to increase the light and enhance safety. The disadvantages were that the oil could spoil, so it could not be stored, and the light produced was dull and blurry. The next substantial improvement, the gas lamp, was introduced at the end of eighteenth century. This employed essentially the same principle, fuel in a container, a wick and a globe; however, the coal gas substituted for oil had a number of advantages. The gas could be transported from one place to another via pipes, allowing for improvements such as whole house lighting or municipal streetlighting. This was the beginning of cheap, effective public lighting with brighter flames, but it was also the beginning of large gas companies, which were, at the time, unregulated, allowing for abuse and poor safety records.

So while oil light was inept and the fuel could not be stored for long, gas provided better light but was not portable, depended on pipes, and was unregulated. In 1846 Abraham Gesner made a major discovery that distilled coal produced a clear liquid that burned with a much brighter flame; Gesner called it kerosene. This development became much more exciting when it was found that kerosene could be extracted from petroleum, thus having the potential to be produced inexpensively.

The kerosene lamp was invented by R.E. Dietz and by Ignacy Kulaskiewicz, a Polish inventor, independently in the same year, 1853. The kerosene lamp worked on the same principle as its oil and gas predecessors: it had a container for the fuel, a wick and a glass globe. Both inventors recognized that the new light source showed tremendous advantages for portability and strong light. In 1857 Dietz patented the first flat wick burner capable of burning kerosene; the advantage was improved air flow with a brighter flame and less flicker. His design was a precursor of every kerosene lamp built today.

R.E. Dietz Company

The R. E. Dietz Company was started in 1840 by Robert Edwin Dietz, who used his savings to purchase a small oil lamp business in Brooklyn, New York. Robert along with his brother William called their company Dietz Brother and Company. Their first manufactured products were whale oil candle lanterns; however, they kept improving the product and soon made the jump to more sophisticated products, making and selling sperm oil, whale oil, camphene (distilled turpentine), glass lamps, candlesticks, and a few dead flame lanterns. After Robert Dietz invented the kerosene lamp in 1853, three more Dietz brothers (Samuel, James and Michael) joined the company in 1855 and it was renamed Dietz and Company. During the same year, the company built a large factory in New York City. After coal oil was distilled in quantity in 1856, the company had a ready market for a cheap, bright burning fuel and in 1857, Dietz patented the first flat-wick burner capable of burning kerosene. During the 1860s, Civil War contracts, Robert's hard work, the growth of railroads, and westward expansion made the lamp business a huge success. After the war ended, the cost of kerosene decreased and Dietz was able to extend the sale of lamps and lanterns to people who were still using candles. In 1868, Robert Dietz sold his share of the company to his brother James and started a new lamp company. However, under James Dietz, the original company was soon bankrupt.

R.E. Dietz went on to produce and sell a new lantern patented by John Irwin in 1868. The so-called hot blast lamp collected hot air from the top of the lamp and recirculated it to the bottom to make the flame burn brighter. Subsequently, Robert began a partnership with Absalom Smith as Dietz & Smith. However, Smith proved to be an unscrupulous business partner and Dietz bought out his interest, continuing solo under the company name of R.E. Dietz. He brought in his eldest son, Frederick Dietz, to assist, and Frederick and younger son John were eventually made partners. In 1887, a new factory for R.E. Dietz was built on the corner of Greenwich and Laught Streets in New York City. In 1894, Robert Dietz retired and left his son Frederick in charge. Frederick Dietz, also an innovator, registered twenty-five new patents for lantern design, designed a new logo, obtained several trademarks, and upgraded the catalog. Robert E. Dietz passed away on September 19^th, 1897, at the age of 79. In June of that year, just a few months before the elder Dietz's death, a major fire destroyed the ten-year old factory building, with the loss of stock, tools, and machinery. R.E. Dietz died without knowing that the factory had been lost.

Meanwhile, R.E. Dietz's major competitor in the lantern business was the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, which was founded in Buffalo and relocated to Rochester, where a new factory was built on the Genesee River, in 1881. This company was founded by Charles T. Ham in partnership with J.H. Kelley. Ham owned the rights to produce and sell Irwin's Tubular lanterns in the western states. In 1886, C. T. Ham left Steam Gauge & Lantern Company to start his own lantern works. However, in November of 1888 a fire in the Rochester building caused major damage along with significant loss of life. After the fire, the company moved to Syracuse and resumed business at the 225 Wilkinson Street location. The company began by leasing an existing factory building which had housed the Syracuse Cabinet Company. By the year 1898, in the annual report of the Commissioner of Patents, the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company in Syracuse, New York, was listed as having received two patents. One of those patents was for a bicycle lamp and the other was for a lamp holder. In the 13^th annual report of factory inspectors of the State of New York, the Steam Gauge & Lantern Company of Syracuse is listed among approximately 311 other businesses in the vibrant downtown Syracuse community for the year ending in 1898.

After the Greenwich Village fire in 1897, the Dietz Company needed a factory in which to continue production. As it turned out, Dietz already owned half of the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, purchased in 1881 by R.E. Dietz, and the latter was his last significant competitor. Frederick Dietz decided to employ his father's strategy of buying out the competition. While C.T. Ham offered to sell out his newly established lantern business to Dietz in an effort to help keep his company in operation, instead, in February 1898, Dietz's board of directors elected to secure controlling interest in the Steam Gauge & Lantern Company of Syracuse, New York, and with that Dietz was back in operation. At the same time, Dietz worked on rebuilding the Greenwich Village factory using "fireproof construction," and in less than a year the New York City factory was back in operation as Factory No. 1 (60 Laight Street, extant). The Syracuse Factory was designated as Factory No. 2.

At the turn of the century, the company produced tubular lanterns, street and station lamps, bicycle lights, carriage and automobile lights, railroad lamps, signal lamps and dozens of models of lanterns. In 1903, the R.E. Dietz Company was awarded the contract to supply lanterns for the construction of the Panama Canal. The company needed more manufacturing space and a building expansion was planned for the Syracuse facility. A plot of land adjacent to Factory #2 was purchased from Daniel O'Brien and his wife, and the company hired prominent local architect Albert L. Brockway (1864-1933) to design the building. Brockway had studied at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and had worked for a time in New York City before becoming a professor of architecture at Syracuse University in 1893. In 1904 a four-story structure including a basement was added to the Syracuse factory, more than doubling the factory square footage. In 1906, the R.E. Dietz Company introduced acetylene gas automobile headlights and taillights.

More land was purchased from Dwight B. Woodford as the company again expanded in 1913. The Syracuse factory was enlarged with another four-story addition on the east side. In 1915 Dietz purchased the former C.T. Ham Manufacturing Company building, which had closed, moving the tooling for the 'Gem' and a few other Ham lantern models to Factory #2 in Syracuse. Dietz's purchase of additional equipment required another four-story addition to the Syracuse factory that now created a total of approximately 150,000 square feet. With this purchase, the basic U-shaped building was complete. All three major wings are identical in form and materials. Additional land was purchased again in 1924 from Dwight B. Woodford. In the 1930s, a large one-story section including a loading dock was added to the west elevation of the building and in the 1940s several small appendages were added, links between wings were created, the loading dock was enclosed, etc. The building attained its current configuration before 1950.

Frederick Dietz died suddenly in 1915 at the age of 68. He had no immediate family but left bequests to his younger brother, John E. Dietz, his sister, his niece, his cousin, and his nephew Robert E. Dietz II, as well as to 600 Dietz employees. John Dietz was subsequently named president of the board, with R.E. Dietz II, the only grandson of the company's founder, named vice president. Dietz continued production of a few Ham lantern models through the end of World War I. Many lantern models were discontinued because of the Great Depression. The company was eventually forced to close Factory No. 1 in New York City and all manufacturing was consolidated in the Syracuse plant in 1931. John Dietz died in 1936 and was succeeded by his son, Robert E. Dietz II; the younger Dietz served until 1950, when he was succeeded by his own son, Gerry [Garry] J. Dietz.

In 1948 the Comet cold blast lantern, first sold to the foreign market in 1934, was introduced in the United States and later became the official lantern of the Boy Scouts of America. In 1952, under Gerry Dietz, the office and factory building at 60 Laight Street in New York City was sold and all management operations were consolidated in the factory on Wilkinson Street in Syracuse. In 1956 Gerry Dietz established R.E. Dietz Co., LTD in Hong Kong to redevelop a large world lantern market. Original tools and dies equipment were relocated from Syracuse, including tooling for the Junior, Crescent, and Pre-Streamlined versions of the Blizzard, D-Lite, Monarch, and Little Wizard models. In 1967 Garry Dietz resigned as president but remained chair of the board. His younger brother, John S. Dietz, took over the presidency for the next decade.

R. E. Dietz Company was a significant employer in the Syracuse area well into the mid-twentieth century. In a 1948 newspaper article the company was said to have six hundred persons on the regular payroll between the New York City factory and Syracuse factory. In the 1950s, when all plant operations and management was consolidated in Syracuse, the company was down to 350 production and office staff. In 1969 the company had grown to 545 employees. In 1965 the company manufactured 400 items of automotive lighting, driving lights, fog/lights, parking lights, stop and taillights and directional signals.

In 1971 lantern manufacturing completely ceased in the Syracuse factory. The company expanded into electric lights for commercial trucks with the Streamline Little Wizard Patio/Post Lamps being the last lanterns produced at the Syracuse factory. The tooling for the Comet and the No. 8 Air Pilot were shipped to Hong Kong to continue production. At this time the Syracuse facility was producing all automotive lighting equipment and flasher equipment for barricades. In May 1974 the Dietz factory became the first manufacturer in Syracuse to computerize material requirements and planning. In 1978 Edward F. Reynolds (Formerly of Smith-Corona Typewriter Co.) was elected as the first non-family president of the R.E. Dietz Company and the company developed a 'floating traffic light' for use on the New York Barge Canal. In 1982 the R.E. Dietz Company, LTD factory in Hong Kong, was relocated to mainland China. In 1990 the Dietz Lantern sales in the United States dropped to an all-time low, less than $50,000, in the same year as the 150^th anniversary of the company. The Federal Mogul Co. made an offer of $14 million to buy the assets and approximately $6 million to cover the debts of the R.E. Dietz Company. Dietz continued to produce several items for the Federal Mogul Co. for two years. In 1991 Dietz sold the tooling for the 'Visi-Flasher' to the Reva Plastic Company of Weedsport, New York. Gerry Dietz remained actively involved in the company until his death in 1993; however, in the previous year, 1992, the Dietz plant in Syracuse was closed and sold out of the Dietz family. The R.E. Dietz Company, LTD established in 1956, continues to manufacture lanterns in Hong Kong and China.

Factory Design

The four-story building components that the Dietz Factory built between 1904-c1930s are excellent examples of the type of industrial buildings were constructed around the turn of the century. These wings were characterized by brick masonry walls, some with decorative brickwork and stone accents. On the interior, they were characterized by heavy timber framing with thick plank wood flooring designed to carry large loads. Specific to this building's design and construction, the interior wood beam and column structural frame is interdependent with the brick masonry exterior walls. The intent was to combine load-bearing masonry walls with interior wood framing composed of large slow burning wood timber meant to slow the rapid spread of fire and configured so as the prevent the collapse of the brick walls if a fire did occur. In that event, the brick walls might remain and could be more easily reused in a reconstructed building. Mill construction was most popular in the late nineteenth century, after the period of all wood factories, which could easily burn to the ground, and just prior to the development of reinforced concrete construction, a much better method of fireproofing. A more typical structural approach would have made the masonry exterior walls load bearing, which would have eliminated the column rows around the perimeter of the building. This may have been done to provide a quicker erection of the building structure in that floor framing did not have to wait on the masonry work to be laid and set before proceeding up. More important, the so-called "skeleton timber slow-burning mill construction," as it was described in an article in a local newspaper, allowed for thinner walls, larger windows and more open space on the interior and can be seen as part of the transition to curtain wall construction. Although we do not yet know why Brockway chose this less typical approach to mill construction, it was definitely a progressive approach to factory design.

Albert L. Brockway

Syracuse architect Albert L. Brockway (1864-1933) has been created with designing the first four-story building at the Dietz Factory, constructed in 1904. Brockway, a native of Utica, New York, studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, followed by a course at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He began his professional experience with Ernest Flagg in New York and is credited, along with Flagg and later partner John P. Benson, with the design of St. Luke's Hospital in Morningside Height. His two partners in Syracuse were John P. Benson (1898-19105) and Alfred Taylor (1905-07). From 1893 to 1895 Brockway was a professor of architecture at Syracuse University, where he is apparently revised the curriculum to follow that of L'Ecole des Beaux Arts more closely. From 1913 to 1914 he worked in the office of the New York state architect. He was also a consulting architect for the New York State Agricultural College at Cornell and the State Capital in Albany. From 1915 to 1933 he was a member of the NY State Board of Examiners for registration of architects. He became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and was an active member of the local chapter, serving as its president in 1933. Brockway was also a member of the Beaux Arts Society and first chair of the Syracuse City Planning Commission in 1918. He received a personal award from Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt for his plan to extend the State Fair Grounds, for which e also designed three buildings. Two are extant: Horticulture and Pure Foods, both designed in 1937.

Among his other commissions in Syracuse were an addition to the Good Shepard Hospital in 1896, the Willow Street Elementary School, the D. Mason and Company Building (with Benson) 1897, the Bank of Syracuse at Hanover Square in 1898, and an addition to the Third National Bank in 1926. In other locations, e designed the Phoenix Village Hall (1928), City Hospital and Nurses Home, and Central Grammar School, all in Auburn, all 1899, the William Howland Residence in Sherwood, and the Sherburne High School (1899), Sherburne.

Building Description

The R.E. Dietz Company Factory is located at 225 Wilkinson Street in Syracuse's west side neighborhood. This neighborhood is just southwest of Syracuse's central business district and is characterized by a combination of modest residential buildings and factories. The site is located just one block north of Erie Boulevard, which follows the path of the Erie Canal. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad paralleled the canal along Tracey Street at the rear of the factory complex and tracks actually extended into the center of the factory site. The nearly three-acre site faces the southwest corner of Leavenworth Park, a nineteenth-century green space which occupies an entire city block and features a north-south cross axial path across the center and diagonal paths from each corner to a pergola that marks the center of the park. The city of Syracuse map from 1868 shows the Dietz Building site platted into seven individual building lots similar in size to the residential lots that still characterize the area. The first industrial development on this site occurred in 1888, when the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company (S.G.&L. Co.) moved to Syracuse from Rochester after a disastrous fire. The R.E. Dietz Company took over the site in 1898, using the S.G.&L.'s buildings before replacing them with its own over approximately seventy-five years of expansion and development. The building occupies about three-quarters of the entire site and there are surface parking areas on the east side along Leavenworth, on the south side along Tracy Street, and a paved area on the northwest corner in front of the loading dock area.

As it exists today, the R.E. Dietz Building is one connected building built in approximately eight major building campaigns. In overall shape, the Dietz Building resembles a long open U, with the open part to the south, two courtyards in the center, and shorter, rectangular wings on either side. In general, the majority of the building is four stories tall and of brick construction; the primary, north, elevation facing Wilkinson Street is ten bays wide, and the longer side elevations are about sixteen bays deep. The two smaller wings are each one story tall and much shallower. Although the northwest and southeast corners of the building suffered major storm damage in 1998 and were repaired with metal coverings, the building recently underwent a meticulous rehabilitation and the corners have been completely repaired.

The earliest section of the building was constructed before 1892. This building, a one-story office at the northeast corner of the building complex, was either here before S.G.&L. Co. moved to the site or was built by that company during its early years in Syracuse. It is identified as a office in the Sanborn map from 1892 and its footprint was thirty-three feet by twenty-seven feet. Today it is still two bays wide (and approximately twenty-three feet wide) and about five or six bays deep (probably expanded since 1892.)

The first building addition constructed by R.E. Dietz was in 1904, when the company constructed a substantial four-story addition west of the existing buildings in an open area along Matty Avenue. The 1904 section of the building measures 59 feet wide by 257 feet long, running north-south and parallel with the west property line. The narrow elevation faces Wilkinson Street. This section is four stories tall, three bays wide, and fourteen bays long. It is of brick construction with a raised cut-stone basement. Each bay had a large window opening in the exterior wall that provided an abundance of natural daylight to the factory floor area and the interior of the building. The building has an overall height of fifty-nine feet and provided 60,650 sq. feet of manufacturing area. This building also included two single-story appendages toward the south along Tracy Street. The first building directly adjacent to the four-story manufacturing building was used as a boiler room and the second building was a coal storage shed. The boiler building was 1,950 square feet and the coal storage shed was 3,000 square feet with a full basement. The 1904 building is a typical example of the industrial factory buildings that were being built in the western part of the city near the Erie Canal. These buildings were generally constructed with masonry exterior walls, some with decorative brickwork, and wood-framed interiors. Structurally the building is classified as heavy-timber frame or "mill construction." Its framing consists of built-up wood columns, beams and purlins. However, the exterior masonry walls are not load-bearing, as in typical mill construction, but are interconnected with the internal framing system. Iron posts are imbedded into the exterior walls and heavy wood beams are tied into them. This is actually a variation of mill construction known as "skeleton slow-burning construction," a method of construction initiated in the period that allowed for thinner walls and more open floor space. The floors and roof are board timbers, and multi-layer framing that span between purlins and beams. The floors are designed to carry heavy loads for manufacturing and in some areas there is additional steel reinforcement for additional load support. The connection between the columns and beams uses a cast-iron cap. This site development and building configuration is illustrated in the Atlas of the City of Syracuse from 1908.

The building's architect took a classical design approach of raising the first floor above grade by four and a half feet on a stone foundation base. As constructed, the building was clearly defined with a three-part base, middle and top. The building has a solid ashlar stone foundation wall that has a split-face finish and a honed stone cap that extends out from the brick masonry wall by four inches, defining the base. The wall is approximately twenty inches in thickness. The masonry walls above the foundation wall and up to the roof line are solid brick with an English bond. The base of the wall begins with an approximate thickness of sixteen inches and reduces in thickness at the fourth-floor level. The building's middle and top are defined by a reduction in the exterior brick wall width at the fourth floor. The transition between middle and top is created by a continuous stone band at the fourth-floor window sill height that wraps the building. This transition is also articulated with a corbel stepping brick band from the main plain of the wall consisting of nine horizontal courses just below the stone band. The top section of the building terminates slightly above the roof elevation and uses a similar stepping brick banding in the last nine horizontal courses before the top of the wall. The masonry wall is capped with overlapping terracotta tiles the full width of the wall.

Fenestration generally consists of one window opening in each bay. On the first floor, each opening features three multi-pane windows, originally wood and later aluminum. These have been replaced with wood aluminum-clad exterior double-hung units with six over six lights. The windows have an exterior stone sill with a flat brick header course for window head opening. Windows on the upper stories of the Wilkinson Street elevation were concealed by metal panels applied over this part of the facade after it was heavily damaged. As part of the recent rehabilitation, this entire corner was rebuilt in brick, and windows based on the originals were installed. These are small-pane industrial-type sash in each large opening, eighteen panes to each window, arranged in nine groups of six panes each. The roof areas are relatively flat with a slight pitch to internal drains, bounded by low parapet walls.

As the complex developed, the main public and employee entrance was created on the Wilkinson Street, east side of the building, in an original building that was part of the 1888-1897 complex. This is illustrated on the 1908 Atlas of the City of Syracuse. This entry extended back from the northeast corner several structural bays. Shipping and receiving from the manufacturing facility was from the south, at Tracy Street. The same 1908 map shows a railroad spur into the site and parallel to the four-story building. This map still illustrates the original building structures with the removal of only one building that ran along Tracy Street and was identified as a Lumber & Storage shed on the 1892 Sanborn map.

In 1913 the Dietz factory was expanded with a major addition east of, and slightly recessed from, the 1904 building. The addition was parallel to and mirrored the design of the 1904 structure. It was also 59 feet wide, by 200 to 214 feet long, running north-south. The variation in length is due to the angled end wall that follows Tracy Street. The addition is three bays wide and eleven bays long and is identical to the earlier building. This addition provided 48,850 square feet of manufacturing space. The building addition also included identical elevator, stair and toilet rooms to those of the 1904 building located in the middle between the two major wings. This created a material shipping and receiving area in the middle with a railroad spur and platforms servicing each building. The elevator and stair shafts on the southern end towards Tracy Street created a bridge connection at the second, third and fourth floors that also defined this service corridor. The design and materials of the 1913 addition are nearly identical to the 1904 structure. Each bay had a group of three windows, each with a six-over-six double-hung sash. One additional architectural feature was the addition of a four-by-four-inch recess in the brick that created a vertical band that broke down the length of the building into three and four-bay structural modules. A private independent appraisal report provided a plot plan for 1913 that illustrates the building complex at that time.

Tn 1915 the next major expansion was added to the existing four-story structures. In order to construct this addition, all the remaining six buildings from 1888 - 1897 were removed to provide enough space. The 1915 construction was also four stories tall and three bays deep; however, it was L-shaped, filling in the gap between the 1904 building and the slightly recessed 1913 addition. This meant that it extended six bays east on Wilkinson before turning and extending three bays north to meet the 1913 piece. This four-story addition provided an additional 40,000 square feet of manufacturing space. This addition created a U- shaped building layout with a sixty-five-foot wide service courtyard in the middle. This configuration has been retained in all subsequent alterations and survives today. The 1915 addition also has the same design characteristics and materials as the earlier structures.

When the 1915 addition was constructed, it was apparently separated from the 1904 section by a one-bay wide, slightly recessed windowless bay, set off by wide brick pilasters that extend to the third story, where they are capped by a corbelled brick course. The only opening in this bay is the new main public and employee entrance on the ground floor, facing Wilkinson Street and the public park across the street. The opening is defined by an over-scaled round arch with a very large glass block transom above double glass doors which are flanked by sidelights of glass block. On each side of the arched entry there are bracketed wall sconce light fixtures using original Dietz 'Pioneer 300' lamps.

In the 1930s a single-story addition was added along the structure running along the west side of the building. This addition measures 65 feet wide by 184 feet long and was separated from the original building by fifteen and one-half feet (it does not seem to be separated now). The building addition was constructed with a stone foundation and brick to match the architectural characteristics of the original buildings; however, the windows were much smaller pairs of double-hung windows and high off the floor along the west wall.

The most recent building additions include four smaller sections that have been completed sometime since the 1942 Sanborn Map. There is a one-story appendage that created a six-bay loading dock and interior floor space on the north end of the 1930s single-story west-side addition. This addition is 36 feet by 72 feet creating 2,635 five square feet. This is a concrete block foundation wall with dimensional wood framing bearing on the brick masonry wall on the south side. The exterior wood framing walls are finished with horizontal wood siding. The loading platform for the railroad spur from the 1913 addition was enclosed to create interior rooms. This area of infill is 17 feet by 52 feet, creating 885 square feet. This is a concrete block foundation wall with dimensional wood framing bearing on a masonry wall to the east. The exterior wood framing walls are finished with horizontal wood siding matching the loading dock addition. The courtyard created in the center of the building with the 1915 addition was in-filled with a single-story structure that provided additional interior space. This courtyard in-fill is 49'-9" by 64'-6" creating 3,200 square feet. This area has a steel-framed supported concrete floor deck above a crawl space and has steel bar joist roof framing. There is a one-story link that created a connection between the 1904 building and the building that was the coal storage shed along Tracy Street to the south. This connection is 18 feet by 50'-6," creating 910 square feet. This is a concrete block wall construction with a painted finish.

In a high wind storm in 1998, several sections of the exterior masonry wall were blown out, causing extensive damage but not affecting the structural integrity of the building. The areas affected consisted of the following locations: north wall of the 1904 building that fronts Wilkinson Street, south and partial west wall of the 1904 building, and partial east wall towards the south corner of the 1913 addition. These sections of walls were repaired with steel stud framing, gypsum board sheathing and exterior insulation finish system on the north wall and the east wall. The south and west walls were repaired with steel stud framing and vertical metal siding material. A single-story loading dock area on the east side of the 1913 addition was developed into a main entrance from Leavenworth Avenue as part of the damage repairs in 1998. As part of the recent rehabilitation, the north wall of the building facing Wilkinson Street was rebuilt in brick and windows similar to the originals were inserted. On the south corner of the 1913 portion of the building (a less prominent elevation) CMU faced with brick was used.

Despite the conversion of the Dietz Building to commercial and apartment spaces, many character-defining features of the original factory spaces have been preserved, allowing us to understand the construction and use of the building. These features include almost all of the wood framing members, many large, open undivided spaces, whether in apartments (where there are very few dividing walls or low partitions) or large furniture showrooms, all large factory-type windows (which were restored or replaced in kind), wood window trim, brick walls, wood floors, sliding factory doors etc.