Candy, Clocks, Corks and Cigars are just some of the products that were manufactured in Lancaster during its industrial heyday, from the 1840s through the 1930s. Factories also produced umbrellas, rifles, cotton cloth, combs, bricks, soap, beer, carriages, wagons, and watches.
Lancaster was well positioned to capitalize upon new types of manufacturing, since the city already enjoyed a solid reputation for the high quality of goods produced by its artisans. Eighteenth-century master craftsmen working in Colonial Lancaster included gunsmiths, locksmiths, toolmakers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, wheelwrights, weavers, and silversmiths. Industrialized factory systems gradually emerged during the nineteenth century from these specialized workshops.
Many sturdy brick industrial buildings that once housed factories, mills, and warehouses still stand today in Lancaster, and have found new uses and functions. These buildings contribute a great deal to Lancaster’s Victorian character and its unique urban environment.
