The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-10-08

ENTERPRISING TOWN
is BUILDING HOUSES
Big Building Concern Lays Plans
For Fifty e New
DWELLINGS.

Springfield, Oct 4---The Fellows
Gear Sharper Co, the expansion of
whose business in the last few years
has been no small factor in the growth
OF Springfield and its advancement to
recognition as one of the large indus
/. trial centers, is now taking practical
. steps to meet the situation brought
& about by the great increase in the
number of shop employees and the to-
tally inadequate number of houses to
shelter them comfortably The Gear
/, Sharper people evidently realize that
the town must keep pace with its en-
: terprises or the latter will be unavoid
4 ably hanipered by the limitations of
their locality. The number of houses
which sufficed to shelter popuia-
Z ton of three or four thousand six
years ago falls far short of filling the
requirements of population of seven
/ or eight thousand today.
, II is patent, too, to good business
3 foresight that steady working force
z of skilled mechanics cannot be sue
cessfully maintained unless the shop
man can provide good home for his
family in the place where he works
/ " he cannot do this, he will move as
: soon as possible to a place where he
can. Every new shop building, every
addition to an industrial plant, should
therefore mean a corresponding ex-
= tension in the residential sections of
! the town to the end that the addition
4 al force coming to man the plants
may find~homes in which, with their
5 families they can settle down per-
manently to a steady job and not be
merely so much more driftwood in
shifting current,
Having, in connection with the
Jones C Lamson Co., built up Hill
crest in the last two years, the Gear
Sharper management has now obtain
ed possession of the large tract of
land belonging to B. II. Harlow and
{ lying between Park st. and the branch
highway from the Chester road to the
fair ground. This area of ten acres
has been devided into so building lots
and is to be crossed by three parallel
streets running $500 feet southerly
from Park st. Contractor W. e. Dix
z is getting things under way for the
erection of these so houses, the Gel
: lars of which will all be dug this fail
and as many Of them as the season
for outdoor work will permit viii be
put up and rooted over for completion
during the winter months.
In preparation for such an extern
sive building operation, Mr., Dix has
under way bunkhouses and cook
penters and 'laborers, and Is to have
on the ground, besides temporary
office for himself and a sawmill, |
which will play an important part in
lessening the cost of construction.
The houses-four, five and six room
cottages-are to be built on the eff |
cency plan, each man having certain
part of the work to perform and go
ing from one house to another to do
it. so that each building will be finish
ed as a machine is put together in a
shop. This method will prevent
waste of time effort and material and
enable the building to be carried on
at the minimum of expenditure. The
object Of the company is to apply to
the building operation the same eff
cheney which counts for SO much in
shop production, and by this means
to keep the cost Of the houses down
to the lowest possible point, as the
company is not building with any idea
of profit.
The architect is George W. Meserve
of Boston, who has designed good
deal of government construction work
and the landscape architect is Her
bert J. Helleway of Boston, who laid
out Camp Deyens, and has been fire.
quently employed by the government
in similar capacity. A superinten-
dent of construction has been secur-
ed in the person of E.. f. Markham,
from the L. S. Shattuck shipyard at
Portsmouth, N H. where he has just
finished several hundred houses for
the government.