Pawtucket’s Standard Paper Box Corp. added to National Register of Historic Places

PAWTUCKET – The National Park Service has added the city’s century-old Standard Paper Box Corp. mill complex to the National Register of Historic Places, State Historic Preservation Officer Edward F. Sanderson, executive director of the state Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, said Tuesday.
The Standard Paper Box Corp., built for the manufacture of cardboard boxes, is an important example of the factories that provided essential services to the region’s jewelry industry, according to a news release from the Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission.
The complex includes a group of attached one and two-story industrial buildings which occupy much of a city block on Kenyon Avenue in the Pleasant View neighborhood.
The oldest building, a red brick two-story L-plan structure with a shallow pitched gable roof, was erected in 1914 as a single-story factory building with a second story and rear ell added around 1939. In 1920, a second single-story, wood-frame, flat-roofed building was constructed and later expanded on in all directions between 1939 and 1949.
The business began in 1912 when Charles K. Shaw, Philip L. Benoit and William D. Wilson purchased the assets of the Pawtucket Box Company, set up business at the downtown Pawtucket location, and established a branch operation in Woonsocket, incorporating a new company to manufacture “cardboard, paper, paper substitutes, paper boxes, paper goods of all kinds, calendars, advertising novelties and specialties, and such novelties as can be manufactured from cardboard, paper, wood, cloth, leather, glass, minerals [and] metals.”
Despite the departure of Shaw, the Standard Paper Box firm grew steadily through the 1920s, manufacturing a variety of display boxes and gift boxes for the jewelry industry. By 1933, the firm went bankrupt during the Great Depression, due to customers unable to pay for purchased goods and money due to a long list of creditors, including suppliers of ribbon, gold stamping, wadding, adhesives, metal clasps, paperboard and engraving services.
At a public auction in May 1933, Lewis Douglas Young, owner of a competing paper box manufacturing company, acquired Standard Paper Box and all of its assets. The new firm, Douglas Young Inc., provided relatively stable employment through the remainder of the Depression. Young significantly expanded the plant in the World War II era, adding a second story to the original 1914 factory building, expanding the rear ell, and expanding the wood-frame storehouse. In 1961, the façade of the plant was extended further north along Kenyon Avenue to its present-day dimensions.
Donald Barrengos became president after Young’s death in 1968, overseeing the 1970 construction of the final building on the site and acquiring the company in 1971. In 1987, the property was purchased by Filler Packaging. Seven years later, the plant was sold and subdivided. The mill’s current owners, 110 Kenyon Ave. LLC, plan an adaptive reuse project to convert the industrial buildings into live/work units and commercial spaces.
“For years this modest factory produced a fantastic variety of decorative specialty boxes for Rhode Island’s nationally important jewelry manufacturers,” Sanderson said in a statement. “Standard Paper Box Mill complex reflects an era when scores of interrelated local industries thrived and gave employment to Rhode Island families. Through historic rehabilitation, this factory will continue to serve the Pleasant View neighborhood.”
The listing on the National Register provides additional benefits in addition to honoring the mill’s history, according to the state commission.
The plant will receive special consideration during the planning of federal or federally-assisted projects and will be eligible for federal tax benefits for historic rehabilitation projects. Owners of private property listed on the National Register are free to maintain, manage or dispose of their property as they choose.
The National Register nomination for the Standard Paper Box Corporation mill complex was prepared by preservation consultant Ned Connors. The Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission is responsible for reviewing and submitting Rhode Island nominations to the National Register.

No posts to display