This 1935 Manufacturing Facility is Home to the Thorogood Brand Footware

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The Weinbrenner Shoe Company was founded in Milwaukee in 1892, by Albert H. Weinbrenner and Joseph Peffer, whose firm, called "Weinbrenner & Peffer," made work boots for loggers working in the northern Wisconsin forests. Initially just a small shoe-making shop, the company grew steadily and, in 1900, was renamed the Albert H. Weinbrenner Company by the partners, who also purchased the assets of the Knoll Shoe Co., another Milwaukee-based shoe factory. By 1909, Weinbrenner had bought out Peffer's share and his company's lines of work boots and sport related shoes had grown to the point where a new factory was needed. The new four-story factory that Weinbrenner built at 226 E. Juneau St. in Milwaukee served as the company's headquarters and principal place of manufacture until the mid-1930s, when the Depression and the costs of doing business in Milwaukee made a change in the structure of the company necessary.

Shoe manufacturing had long been a major industry in Wisconsin, but by 1935 the industry itself was in the midst of change.

By the end of World War I, production value of manufactured leather goods in Wisconsin was more than $16.6 million. Ranked among the top ten producing states in the Union, Wisconsin maintained a shoe industry that was increasingly characterized by increasing mechanization and the displacement of highly skilled wage earners by less skilled employees. Specialization had also become a feature of many concerns, as efforts were directed towards the production of a particular type, shape, or style of shoe or boot. Increasing centralization was also evident. Of the $13.6 million worth of goods produced by Wisconsin firms in 1909, $7 million was from Milwaukee factories, about four million pairs of shoes. The size of many factory complexes had expanded to impressive scales, utilizing brick and masonry construction. The Great Depression signaled the end of large-scale production in the state, however.

What was happening was the exact opposite of what had happened before, decentralization replacing centralization, the stated reasons being the high overhead and labor costs prevalent in the larger cities.

Decentralization of manufacturing has progressed rapidly in the shoe industry in Milwaukee which is repeating the experience in St. Louis. Most of the large shoe manufacturing companies in Milwaukee have established plants in the smaller towns of Wisconsin and Michigan. Within the last two years, Edgerton and Waupun were fortunate enough to attract plants that were moving out of Milwaukee; Luddington, Michigan attracted a large Milwaukee plant.

The work shoe factory which comes to Marshfield is the first plant the Weinbrenner company has located in its decentralization program. Several other cities, among them, New London, Stoughton, and Baraboo, made strong bids for the plant, which will be opened here in September.

That Marshfield finally won out in its bid for the new factory had its origin in a chance conversation.

Once the Weinbrenner firm committed itself to the move, a whole other series of events had to take place at the Marshfield end in order to make the new factory a reality.

Construction on the factory began from scratch in late May of 1935, and the finished building was ready for occupancy by the end of September. That so much was accomplished in so short a time was a tribute to everyone involved and shows what could be done when all the resources of a city were marshaled to achieve a common goal. It also reflects the fact that most of the work force was from the Marshfield area and most of the materials used were sourced locally, but this, of course, was planned from the start, these being still more ways in which the construction of the new factory was intended to benefit the entire community. Some idea of the variety of local goods and services that the project utilized can be seen from the following account:

The construction of the factory's building was only a part of the story, however, because it was also necessary to train the work force that was to use it.

By mid-September, however, all was in readiness and the opening of the factory was accompanied by a city-wide celebration that included, among many other events, the crowning of a Queen of Industry in the factory to the accompaniment of massed choirs and music played by the city's renowned 135^th Regiment Band.

The arrangement between the City and the Weinbrenner Company that governed the ownership of the new factory building was a mutual one but it was also one that was forged out of the hard-won lessons that they and other communities and businesses had learned from prior experience.

On the one hand, the City needed to produce a contract that was attractive to the Company while at the same time, protecting its substantial investment in the new building. On the other hand, the Company did not want to be financially burdened by the cost of constructing and owning an expensive new building at a time when the economic uncertainties of the day made such an undertaking financially perilous. The resulting agreement satisfied both parties and it has remained in force ever since.

The factory of the new Marshfield division of the Weinbrenner Shoe Company began operating in November of 1935, with almost 200 employees, and its immediate success encouraged the company to continue with its decentralization program. As a result, similar new divisions of the company were started in the cities of Merrill and Antigo, Wisconsin, in 1936. By 1945, the Marshfield division of the company had produced 9,472,375 pairs of shoes and had survived both the Depression years and the boom period of World War II to become an established part of the economic and social life of the city. The headquarters of the Weinbrenner Company continued to be located in Milwaukee during this period, and its three divisions remained in operation under the Weinbrenner name until 1960, when the company was purchased by Textron, Inc. Textron operated the company until 1966, when the company was purchased by the Bata Shoe Organization, the largest manufacturer of footwear in the world, but the company continued to operate under its original name. In 1986, Weinbrenner consolidated its manufacturing operations, resulting in the closing of its Antigo facility, and in 1988, after 22 years as a division of Bata, the company was purchased by WSC, Inc., a group that was comprised of Weinbrenner executives and other local investors. In 2000, the company became completely employee-owned, and its headquarters is now in Merrill. The Marshfield factory building is still owned by the City of Marshfield and it continues to be leased by the Weinbrenner Shoe Co., which employs a work force of about 200.

Architect Gus A. Krasin

Gus A. Krasin (1885-1951) was the only professional architect to practice in Marshfield in the first half of the twentieth century. Krasin was born in Volynia, Russia in 1885, and he came to this country with his family in 1892. The Krasin family settled first in southern Arkansas, then moved to southern Michigan, and finally, to a farm in Tigerton, Wisconsin and Krasin was schooled in Lutheran schools in each of these places. In 1903, Krasin left the family farm to follow the carpenter's trade and, in 1907, he established the contracting firm of Krasin Brothers in Tigerton with his brother, J. F. Krasin. During this period, Krasin also steadily acquired knowledge of the practice of architecture by taking correspondence courses. In 1909, the brothers moved the firm to Marshfield and it continued in operation in this city until 1932, after which time Krasin operated a separate architectural office in the city until his death in 1951.

Krasin practiced as an architect from 1910 until his death while also serving as a member of the Krasin Brothers contracting firm during the period of its existence. During this forty-year period, Krasin was undoubtedly responsible for the design of many buildings that remain unidentified, not only in Marshfield but elsewhere. As his obituary noted: "He was well known throughout Wisconsin and, to a lesser extent, in Illinois, Indiana, and Arkansas for school, church, and commercial structures he designed."

The earliest work that Krasin is known to have produced was not built, this being a design that he created in 1929 for a new Neo-Classical Revival style band shell in Columbia Park in Marshfield. Unfortunately, only a few of the Marshfield buildings that Krasin designed and which were actually built have been identified, but they are buildings that have been of importance to the city. The earliest is the Weinbrenner Shoe Factory, which was built in 1935. His next identified building was the International Style house that he built for himself in 1936 at 808 S. Oak Ave., which is still extant but has now been almost totally remodeled. This was followed by the Marshfield Armory and Community Building located at 201 S. Oak Ave., which was built in 1941-42, with WPA funding. The last identified building designed by Krasin was the Dairyland Broadcasting Co. building located at 1710 N. Central Ave. and built in 1947. In addition to the Marshfield buildings that Krasin designed, he also acted as a supervising architect for the work of others, including the Adler Movie Theater at 419 S. Central Ave., built in 1937 to a design by Perry F. Crosier of Minneapolis.

Marshfield History

Industry has played an enormous part in the history of Marshfield and continues to do so to this day. Unquestioning belief in the potential benefits of industrial development was present in the community from the earliest days of its existence and was, in fact, the principal reason for the ultimate success of the Marshfield site.

Like so many other later nineteenth century Wisconsin communities, the city of Marshfield owes its existence to its proximity to transportation routes, which in this case was the Wisconsin Central Railroad. The land that is now Marshfield was originally part of the holdings of the railroad, which was headquartered in the city of Menasha in the Fox River Valley, and which had received an enormous grant of land from the federal government at the end of the Civil War in return for building a rail line across the state from the city of Portage northwest to the city of Ashland on the shore of Lake Superior and on to Superior. The decision to establish a depot in the vicinity of what is now Marshfield was based on the fact that Marshfield is located in almost the exact center of the state and was, in 1871, also located halfway between Steven Point and the village of Colby, which was to be the north end of the first completed leg of this line. This central position favored the creation of a supply depot for the railroad at the Marshfield location and it was made still more attractive by the fact that land in this vicinity was flat and heavily forested, thereby lessening the cost of the construction of the line and also raising the possibility that the railroad could make a profit from both the sale and the shipping of this timber.

In order to establish this supply depot, the railroad contracted with Louis Rivers of Necedah to build and operate a hotel at the Marshfield location on free land provided by the Fox River Lumber Co. Rivers and his family arrived at the site in 1872 and had a small but serviceable log hotel in operation by the time the train tracks arrived later that year.

The first leg of track built in the proposed 250 mile route stretched from Menasha to Stevens Point in 1871. The following year saw another length from Stevens Point to Colby. The importance of this development was twofold. First, it provided traffic for the future Marshfield with the more populated and economically active portion of the state; from Steven Point south and east. The rail links brought migrants and markets within reach of the logging frontier that was Marshfield. If there were to be any reason for consistent activity in the wilderness, then there had to be a supply of labor and demand for the goods produced.

Second, the connections to Lake Superior proceeded slowly after the initial settlement of Marshfield and its transformation into a permanent manufacturing site. This lag coincided with the increasing demand for lumber (at both the local and national level) and provided the transportation route to reach into the north woods and then bring it back to Marshfield for processing. By the time this had happened, Marshfield was not only a regular stop on the Wisconsin Central's Chicago schedule, but had begun to attract the attention of other roads who took advantage of the city's central location and built through the town as well.

Marshfield was one of the first important communities in the northern part of the state that owed its existence entirely to the coming of the railroad. Older communities such as Stevens Point owed their existence to their location on waterways that could be used to transport logs from the state's forests to the mills where they were to be processed. Marshfield had no such natural advantage but the coming of the railroad made such a location unnecessary.

The Marshfield site lacked the natural advantages that drew early industries to other nearby cities such as Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids, both of which were located on the Wisconsin River. The damming of the Wisconsin at these locations created waterpower that industry could use to drive machinery and this led to the establishment of industrial enterprises at these locations and helped fuel the success of these cities. Marshfield had no rivers and indeed lacked plentiful water of any kind. What it did have was a geographical location that was situated midway between Chicago and Minneapolis and near the seemingly endless forests of northern Wisconsin, and a location on a railroad.

The first to take advantage of these factors was William H. Upham, who had been born in Massachusetts and raised in Wisconsin, and who came to Marshfield in 1878 at the age of 37. Borrowing money from family, William Upham and his brother, Charles Upham, organized the town [of Marshfield] as a central location for bringing in raw materials and processing them into usable products for the expanding urban markets to the south. In this transformation of Marshfield from wayside to factory site, the Uphams made sure to look after their employees by building a general store at the same time they built the first sawmill in 1878. In short order Upham moved to expand and refine the processing of raw lumber by adding a planing mill in 1879, a furniture factory in 1882 and most telling of all, a flour and feed mill in 1885.

The Banner Mills indicated that Upham was more than lucky or even shrewd, in his business sense. The rolling mills turned grain into flour and signaled a recognition that the logging frontier had passed and that the farmer's frontier had begun.

By 1887, the population of Marshfield had reached 2500, with almost 1000 of these working at the various Upham mills in the city. Not surprisingly, the Upham factory and the city's other, though much smaller, industrial facilities were all arrayed along the railroad tracks, the route of which corresponded to today's Veteran's Parkway and to the adjacent Depot and Railroad streets. In June of 1887, however, the Upham factory and its adjacent lumberyard caught fire. The ensuing disaster destroyed not only Upham's factory and his mills but almost all of the city's other manufacturing facilities, its entire commercial district, and many of its homes. The day after the fire saw the fate of the city hanging in the balance and it was only Upham's decision to rebuild his factories in Marshfield that prevented the city from disappearing. But rebuild it he did, and the new and improved factory that resulted continued to be Marshfield's biggest employer until the factory finally closed in 1927, three years after the death of its founder.

Upham's decision to rebuild revitalized the city and led others to follow his lead in creating factories that produced wood-related products. Included in this list would be the Hatteburg Veneer Co., the Hafer & Kalshied Saw & Planning Mill, the H. H. Bille Sash and Door Co., and the Marshfield Stave & Heading Co. All of these companies followed Upham's lead in producing products fashioned from the forests that stretched away to the north of the city and all of them met with success for a time by specializing in niche manufacturing related to wood products. The handwriting was on the wall, however, and when the Upham Co. closed its planing mill in 1899 it was a sign that the once endless stream of wood was slowing down as the forests began to be depleted.

By 1898, the population of Marshfield had climbed to 5800 and as Marshfield grew, the economic base of the city changed as well. Until 1900, Marshfield's prosperity was based largely on its location near the places where timber was harvested and the city's manufacturing establishments were centered on this industry. As the forests began to recede, however, much of what had once been forestland was converted into farmland and agriculture began to play an ever-increasing role in the local economy. Granaries and feed mills began to be built along the railroad corridor, a brewery was established, and commercial establishments that catered to the needs of the farmer began to appear. So too did manufacturing establishments devoted to the processing of food products such as cheese and eggs, and all of these new establishments needed workers.

The manufacturing of products from wood in Marshfield was far from finished, though, and continues even today. Partly this was due to the development of more sophisticated technology and equipment, which permitted products to be made from lumber byproducts and from wood once thought to be commercially worthless.

Improving industrial skills became more valuable as the Hatteberg factory moved into the realm of veneer manufacturing. Hatteberg invented a process for cutting the thinnest veneer yet from logs while William H. Roddis, in 1903, established a sawmill to use less traditionally valuable woods for lumber. Expansion of the furniture and bedding factories in town signaled the importance of Marshfield as a stable industrial center.

The advent of the Roddis name in Marshfield's manufacturing history is especially important because the company that William H. Roddis founded went on to become one of the most important in Marshfield's history. The Roddis Veneer Co. was the original Roddis company and was formed in July of 1897 after A. K. Hatteberg sold his interests in the Hatteberg Veneer Co. to W. H. Roddis following a fire that destroyed a large portion of the factory that Hatteberg had started in 1891. The new company became the Roddis Veneer Co. and later, the Roddis Plywood Co. and its continued growth over the years that followed made it Marshfield's second largest employer while the Upham Co. was still in operation, and the city's largest employer from 1927 until it was purchased by the Weyerhaeuser Co. in 1970, by which time the company had grown to become national in scope.

But if the manufacture of wood products remained important to the city's economy, new industries in Marshfield also began to reflect the increasing importance of agriculture in the surrounding area at the beginning of the twentieth century. The earliest of these industries was the Marshfield Brewery, which was begun by the firm of Schiebe and Schneider in 1889-1890. This later became a stock company called the Marshfield City Brewing Co., and its large, now demolished, brick brewery was located near the intersection of N. Oak Ave. and W. Doege St. By the end of the nineteenth century other products derived from the produce grown in the area, such as cheese, were being processed in Marshfield as well. New manufacturing concerns were making use of the city work force's expertise in wood product manufacturing to make products for these and other emerging food-related industries.

In 1911, John & Paul Blum began the first regional factory to produce cheese boxes, those large containers for processing the raw milk into curds and whey and ultimately storing and curing the cheese itself. Given that the Roddis Veneer Company had eliminated cheese boxes from its output, Blum Brothers filled a needed void. With the availability of processing goods (cheese boxes) and a centralized facility for collection and storage of perishable freight (Hub City Cold Storage) the proliferation of numerous local cheese processing plants became desirable.

Another company that manufactured products relevant to area farmers was the Felker Bros. Manufacturing Co., which moved to Marshfield from Sparta, Wisconsin in 1908 and is still in operation there today.

The Felker Brothers specialized in a wide range of galvanized steel products, including stock tanks, well casings and other products useful to farm and city.

Another agriculture-related Marshfield manufacturing plant was the Marshfield Canning Co., whose plant was built here in 1924 as part of the Oconomowoc Canning Co. group. This plant continued in operation in Marshfield under the direction of the Binzel family until it was sold to Canopy Systems, Inc. in 1982.

The last sizable manufacturing concern developed in Marshfield before the end of World War II was the Weinbrenner Shoe Factory, which was built in 1935 in the depth of the Depression on a site on W. Third St. that had once been part the site of the Upham Manufacturing Co. The creation of this factory, which is still operated by the Weinbrenner Shoe Co., was a major coup for the city and it provided much needed employment when it was built and it still does so today.

The Company continues today, making its Thorogood Foorware

Building Description

The principal building of the new 1935 portion of the Weinbrenner factory is positioned at the far east end of the block and the land between it and W. Walnut Ave. and between it and W. Third St. was planted with a mown lawn that is still intact today. Similar strips of mown lawn were also developed along the W. Second St. and S. Spruce St. sides of the block as well when new additions were added to the original factory and they are still extant today as well. The south corner of the block and the portion of the block that lies adjacent to the interior of the factory, however, are surfaced in gravel and are used primarily for employee parking and other factory purposes. In addition, concrete sidewalks edge the W. Second St., W. Third St., and S. Spruce Ave. sides of the block.

An historic residential neighborhood is located to the east and to the south of the block that is occupied by the Weinbrenner factory. All the land to the west of the factory is part of a large city park while the land to the north of it is occupied by buildings that are used for a mix of commercial, light industrial, and municipal purposes.

As noted above, the original 1935 portions of the Weinbrenner factory are essentially astylistic and are of utilitarian design although some details display a slight Art Deco style influence. The factory that exists today was built in three major stages between 1935 and 1958, and while the different elements that make up the whole differ in height, in size, and in certain details, they all share certain basic features. All parts of the factory sit on reinforced concrete pad foundations, the uppermost part of which is visible on the building's exterior, and the exterior walls that rest on them are completely clad in brick that is laid in common bond. The roofs of most of these different portions originally consisted of built-up composition material, but all of the factory's roofs are hidden from view by low parapet walls that edge the various elements of the factory. All of the factory's door and window openings are rectilinear, all the window openings have concrete sills, all of the original windows are still extant, and all but several, located in the office wing, consist of multi-light steel sash, many of which also have incorporated within them a smaller operable top-hinged awning window.

The southeast-facing elevation of the factory is also the southeast-facing elevation of the original 1935 factory and it faces onto S. Walnut Ave. It is 272-feet-long and three-stories-tall and its length is divided into 19 bays. The two end bays are both slightly wider than the seventeen identical-width bays in between them and historic photos of this elevation show that each story of these two bays originally contained two twelve-light steel sash windows whose center six lights consist of an operable awning type window. All of these windows are still extant on the left-hand end bay but those on the right side of the right-hand bay have now been bricked shut with brick that is identical to that that was used on the facade originally. These two end bays are further distinguished from the other seventeen by having a parapet wall whose uppermost edge consists of a slightly stepped pediment that has concrete coping, and just below is a small oblong brick panel that is outlined in header bricks and whose face consists of two courses of brick laid in a chevron pattern and on which is centered a small concrete diamond pattern tile.

Both the end bays and all the other bays on this elevation are separated from one another by three-story-tall pilaster strips that have Art Deco style-influenced concrete capitals and these pilaster strips are faced with a dark brown brick that is different from and somewhat darker than the reddish brown brick that is used elsewhere on the facade. Each of the three stories of this elevation's seventeen inner bays contains a pair of sixteen-light steel sash windows that are separated vertically from one another by wide brick spandrels, and the parapet wall that crowns these bays is continuous and is edged by terra cotta tile coping. Still visible today is the name of the company that was painted at an early date across the spandrels that separate the second from third stories and which reads: "Thorogood Shoes, Albert H. Weinbrenner Co."

The only other feature on this elevation is a one-story, rectilinear plan 60-foot-long by 20-foot-wide enclosed loading dock pavilion that is attached to the elevation and which covers the first story of the elevation's four right-hand bays. This pavilion is believed to have been built in 1956 and its walls are clad in brick laid in common bond and its principal garage door opening faces northeast onto W. Second St. and it is enframed with reinforced concrete.

The northeast-facing elevation of the factory is comprised of two separate but attached components: the three-story-tall northeast-facing end elevation of the rectilinear plan 1935 factory block, and the one-story-tall northeast-facing elevation of the L-plan 1937-41 addition, both of which were designed by Gus A. Krasin.

The 52-foot-wide end elevation of the 1935 factory building is five-bays-wide with the two end bays being equal in width and their uppermost portions being treated to the same decorative treatment as the uppermost portions of the end bays on the southeast-facing elevation. Here too, the left-hand bay now contains no openings while each story of the right-hand bay contains a pair of sixteen-light steel sash windows. The middle bay of this elevation's three center bays is wider than the two bays that flank it and the only opening on the first story of any of these bays consists of a small entrance door located in the first story of the left-hand bay. Both the second and third stories of the middle bay, however, contain a pair of sixteen-light steel sash windows while the second and third stories of the flanking bays contain an eight-light window whose center four lights consist of a top-hinged awning window.

The one-story-tall, brick-clad, northeast-facing elevation of the 1937-1941 addition is 250-feet-long and its width is divided into ten equal-width bays by pilaster strips that have simple concrete capitals and which are faced in a darker brown brick than the surrounding wall surfaces. Each of these bays contains two pairs of sixteen-light steel sash windows and the entire elevation is crowned by a parapet wall that is edged with concrete coping.

The northwest-facing elevation of the factory is also comprised of two separate but attached components: the one-story-tall northwest-facing elevation of the L-plan 1937-41 addition, and the one-story-tall northwest-facing elevation of the rectilinear plan 1945-48 warehouse addition, both of which were designed by Gus A. Krasin. The entire combined elevation lies in the same plane, both elevations are the same height, and both are crowned by a parapet wall that is edged with concrete coping.

The one-story-tall, brick-clad, northwest-facing elevation of the 1937-1941 addition is 160-feet-long and its width is divided into six equal-width bays by pilaster strips that have simple concrete capitals and which are faced in a darker brown brick than the surrounding wall surfaces. The first and second bays from the right both contain a pair of sixteen-light steel sash windows and the fourth and fifth bays from the right do as well, although the pair in the fifth bay is placed higher on the wall surface than the other three, and the one in the fourth bay has an entrance door placed to its left. In addition, the sixth bay from the right contains an oblong pair of eight-light windows that are placed high up on the wall surface while the third bay from the right contains a loading dock door that has now been closed up.

The one-story-tall, brick-clad, northwest-facing elevation of the 1945-1948 addition is 75-feet-long and it is two-bays-wide. These bays are located at opposite ends of the elevation from one another and they each contain a loading door opening that is no longer in use as such. The outline of the roof of the former loading dock that these doors originally opened out onto is still visible and this roof also accounts for the less weathered appearance of the wall surface that it once sheltered.

The southwest-facing elevation of the factory is comprised of four separate but attached components: the three-story-tall southwest-facing end elevation of the rectilinear plan 1935 factory block; the one-story-tall southwest-facing elevation of the 1935 office block, both of which were designed by Gus A. Krasin; the one-story southwest-facing elevation of the 1956 infill addition to the factory; and the one-story-tall southwest-facing elevation of the 1945-1948 addition, which was also designed by Krasin.

The one-story-tall, brick-clad, southwest-facing elevation of the 1945-1948 addition is 160-feet-long and it is ten-bays-wide. Each of these ten bays originally contained an oblong window opening that contained a twelve-light steel sash window, and these openings were placed high up on the wall surface. Eight of these ten window openings and their windows are still intact today, but the center two are now covered over by a one-story-tall shed-roofed, concrete block loading dock pavilion that was built in 1956.

The one-story-tall, brick-clad, southwest-facing elevation of the L-plan 1956 addition that fills the northerly portion of the space that originally lay between the southwest-facing elevation of the 1935 three-story block and the northeast-facing elevation of the 1937-1941 addition is 100-feet-long and it is four-bays-wide, with these four bays being located across the left-half of the elevation. The first, third, and fourth bays from the left each contain a fifteen-light steel sash window while the second bay from the left contains a pair of these fifteen light windows.

The one-story-tall, brick-clad, southwest-facing elevation of the 1935 office block is 52-feet-wide and its width is divided into two unequal-width portions. The less wide right-hand portion is three-bays-wide with the center bay consisting of an entrance door that is crowned with a two-light transom, and this door is flanked on either side by a six-light steel sash window. The wider left-hand portion is also three-bays-wide and this portion projects out slightly from the adjacent wall surface and it is symmetrical in design. The center bay contains the main entrance to the office and this bay projects out still further from the adjacent wall surfaces and features an entrance door that is crowned by a three-light transom and flanked by sidelights and which is sheltered by a canopy that is supported by wooden angle brackets. A more elaborate version of the decorative brick panel described earlier, that is found on the factory block, is placed above this entrance door, and above it is a date stone that bears the date "1935." The two bays that flank this entrance pavilion both contain a picture window that is crowned by a five-light transom. These windows have wood sash, the only ones on the entire factory, and a further decorative touch is added by the placement of a decorative brick stringcourse that spans the width of the left-hand portion of the office block above the windows and the entrance door. Although the original entrance doors have now been replaced with modern ones, the rest of this elevation is largely intact, the only significant change it has experienced being to the upper portion of the wall surface above the door and windows, which has now been covered over with modern metal sheathing.

The 52-foot-wide southwest-facing end elevation of the 1935 factory building is very similar to the northeast end elevation of the block and it too is five-bays-wide, with the two end bays being equal in width and their uppermost portions being treated to the same decorative treatment as the uppermost portions of the end bays on the southeast-facing elevation that were described earlier. Here too, the left-hand bay now contains no openings, while each of the three stories of the right-hand bay contain a pair of sixteen-light steel sash windows. The middle bay of this elevation's three center bays is wider than the two bays that flank it and all three stories of the middle bay also contains a pair of sixteen-light steel sash windows while the three stories of the flanking bays each contain an eight-light window whose center four lights consist of a top-hinged awning window.

The interior of the Weinbrenner Shoe Co. factory is just as intact as the exterior and it too is in excellent, well-maintained condition. This may have something to do with the fact that the company has had only a limited incentive to radically alter a building they did not own, but it probably has more to do with the fact that the technical aspects of making mostly leather work shoes has not changed a great deal since the factory first opened. Consequently, what worked well for the company in the beginning still works well for them today and has resulted in only minor changes being made to the factory itself. It is true, of course, that the functions of different parts of the factory have been shifted about over the years, but even this has not resulted in much change to the factory building itself, which continues to look remarkably like it always has.

The head office of the Weinbrenner Shoe Co. was never located in Marshfield. Consequently, the office block of the Marshfield factory was never meant to do more than house the offices of the Marshfield division's manager and his staff, and the one large room in this block is used as a combination meeting room and showroom. As a result, the interiors in this block are unexceptional and they have been altered more than once over time. Floors in this block are either carpeted or are covered in vinyl, windows and doors have simple wooden casings, and ceilings are now suspended.

The interior of the rest of the factory is strictly utilitarian. The 1935 block is three-stories-tall and its steel external supporting frame is not visible on the interior. Each story of this block consists of a single 50-foot-wide by 270-foot-long loft type room whose work areas have a wooden floor composed of narrow varnished wooden boards, while a poured concrete pathway along one side acts as a path for heavy work carts. The walls of these lofts are composed of painted cinder block into which large steel sash windows are placed at regular intervals, and the ceilings are made up of diagonal wood boards that acts as the subfloor for the story above. These ceilings are supported by massive wood girders that are themselves supported by two parallel rows of posts made out of steel I-beams, and the floor above is carried on rows of wood joists that intersect with and pass through the girders. Fluorescent lighting fixtures supplement the plentiful available light coming through the windows, and all utilities such as electricity, plumbing, and heating and ventilation, are exposed.

The design of the interior of the one-story-tall L-plan 1937-1941 addition to the factory is essentially the same as that of the 1935 block and consists of a single large loft type L-plan room whose ceiling is supported by timber girders and joists that are themselves supported by two parallel rows of steel I-beam posts. Work stations are arranged in rows in the aisles between the posts and the only difference between this addition and the 1935 block is that in the addition the floor is fashioned entirely of poured concrete. The only significant change that has occurred to this addition's interior since it was originally built has been to its southwest and southeast-facing walls. Originally, these were exterior walls and the openings in them were the filled with multi-light steel sash windows. But, when the last addition was made to the factory in 1956, these walls became interior walls instead. As a result, the original windows were removed from these openings, which were filled instead with grids made out of decorative concrete block that allowed light and air to pass through from one room to another.

The interiors of the other later parts of the factory are also essentially unchanged since they were built and they too feature poured concrete floors and concrete block inner walls.

1935 Block, looking north (2006)

1935 Office Wing, looking northeast (2006)

Rear of Factory, with 1958 Addition in Foreground (2006)

1948 Addition (2006)

1935 Block, looking west (2006)

First Story, 1935 Block (2006)

Supporting Pillar, First Story, 1935 Block (2006)

1948 Wing (2006)