Label
The Clerk Reports
Title
Declaring the intent to designate the building located at 328 N. Westwood Avenue, Toledo, Ohio, a historic landmark; and declaring an emergency.
Summary
SUMMARY & BACKGROUND:
Architectural Significance of the Building for consideration to become a Designated Landmark.
Building History: The building at 328 N. Westwood Avenue was constructed in 1946 by the Swartzbaugh Manufacturing Company as office and warehouse space. Originally founded as the Toledo Cooker Company in 1897, the company started off manufacturing kitchen appliances, eventually building a factory on Bancroft Street by 1905. The name was changed to the Swartzbaugh Manufacturing Company in 1923 upon the death of founder Charles Swartzbaugh at which time his heirs decided they would expand into other small appliances. Around or after World War II, the company also started producing institutional food conveyor systems, utilized in hospitals and similar. Purportedly owing to labor disputes, in 1951 the company sold off its "Everhot" appliance division to McGraw Hill and moved its conveyor business to Murfreesboro, TN. They owned and utilized the building for only approximately 3 years before selling. The building then became home to Donofrio Industries and then subsequently to the creation and manufacture of the Craft Master Paint-by-Number products,
In 1945 the Palmer Paint Sales Company of Detroit conceptualized and became the first to mass-produce and market paint by number kits. The brainchild of Detroit artist Dan Robbins and Max Klein of Palmer Paint, the concept took off in the early 1950s. Klein had purchased the Palmer Show Card Paint Company, which originally sold tempura powders to sign painters, in 1945. He immediately started expanding the company's wholesale product lines, and between 1945 and 1949 grew sales from $125,000 per year to $300,000. Robbins was originally hired on contract by Klein in 1949 to design packaging for small bottles of...
Click here for full text