Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company
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Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company is a historic factory at 360 Elm Street in
Westfield, Massachusetts Westfield is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, Hampden County, in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, United States. Westfield was first settled by Europeans in 1660. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield metrop ...
. Built about 1887, it is the best preserved of Westfield's extant whip factory buildings. It is also home to the last surviving business of the many
whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...
makers that once operated in Westfield. The factory was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1985, and included in an expansion of the
Westfield Center Historic District The Westfield Center Historic District is a historic district encompassing of the civic, commercial, and industrial heart of Westfield, Massachusetts. It represents a major expansion of the Westfield Center Commercial Historic District, which ...
in 2013.


Description and history

The Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company plant is located in an industrial area just north of downtown Westfield, on the west side of Elm Street just south of the
Westfield River The Westfield River is a major tributary of the Connecticut River located in the Berkshires and Pioneer Valley regions of western Massachusetts. With four major tributary branches that converge west of the city of Westfield, it flows (measured ...
. The complex is dominated by a 2-1/2 story brick building with modest ornamentation that is ten window bays long and three wide. Windows are set in segmented-arch openings with headers formed out of soldier bricks. The roof eave is adorned with brick corbelling, and the main entrance is sheltered by a Victorian-era porch with turned posts. The building was built about 1887 for the A.G. Barnes Whip Company, and was purchased in 1893 by the United States Whip Company, which was formed out of a merger of many local whipmakers. Beginning in 1910, the building underwent a number of ownership and usage changes, although significant elements of the whipmaking machinery were retained through uses that included the manufacture of paper tubes, dog collars, and hardware for funerary caskets. In 1957, the building was purchased by the recently founded Westfield Whip Company, which uses some of the facility's specialized machinery for whip manufacturing.


See also

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National Register of Historic Places listings in Hampden County, Massachusetts __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Hampden County, Massachusetts. This is a list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United ...


References


External links


Official website
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Hampden County, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Westfield, Massachusetts