ABOUT THE BUILDING

      The Robbins museum is housed a wooden frame factory, originally 42 by 66 feet, built in 1910 for the Henry B. Schluster Company, manufacturers of paper boxes and display cards for jewelry and fountain pens. One specialty item made by the company was a case for a memorial gold watch presented to George Dewey, the Admiral of the United States Navy during the Spanish American War. 

      After Mr. Schluster’s death in the late 1920s, the company was bought and operated by Messrs. D.T. Burnett and E.C. Fales.

     The business then became the Faburn Manufacturing Company, producing a patented no-drip oil can. When this business closed in 1933, the Morris Shoe Company was induced to come from Taunton to use the building.

      In 1945, the company was bought by C.W. Deane, and operated as the Deane-Morris Shoe Company. A 5000 square foot addition was built onto the rear of the original building. In 1959, another 10,000 square feet was added. Business peaked in 1961 and then declined due to overseas competition. In 1964, the shoe company moved to Puerto Rico.

      The building was purchased in 1972 by the Robertson Company and was operated as a curtain factory. This factory produced some of the curtains that were used in the Bronson Museum, the Attleboro based predecessor to the Robbins Museum.

          In recent years, it was purchased by the Read Corporation, to be converted into office space. This plan was set aside, and the building, containing 21,000 square feet, was generously made available to the Massachusetts Archaeological Society.