American Waltham Watch Factory

I originally saved this photo as an example of using line shafts. But since John identified it as Waltham Watch, I dug deeper.

John Abbott posted
Waltham Watch Factory line shafting

Please see PocketWatchRepair for a history of the company and a page of links to photo albums such as screw making machines. The photos were taken by Wm. A. Webster. The estimate for the time frame of the photos is early 1890's.

There are three and one-half miles of work benches most of which are cherry plank two feet wide and two inches thick, 4,700 pulleys, 8,000 feet of wall rods, 10,600 feet main shafting, 39,000 feet of belting, ranging in widths from two inches to two feet. More than 200,000 gallons of water are used daily and the pipes for water, gas and steam aggregate about 24 miles in length. An ordinary watch movement is composed of upwards of 160 pieces requiring for their production about 3,750 distinct operations. [Wm. A. Webster]

I am happy to discover that the factory buildings have been re-purposed. Google Map has 47 photos, some of which are historic views. I think I found some men working in at least one of the factory scenes.

3D Satellite