Historic Mills of Connecticut

Companies Associated w/Complex

• General Baking Co. 1923-1971
• George O. Kolb Bakery 1913-1923
• Max Sanders Trucking Co. 1971-late-20th c.
• Thomas W. Raftery, Inc. late-20th c. - Present (2015)

Use (Historic)

• Food, Beverage, Tobacco
• Textiles
• Transportation

Largest Documented Workforce

Unknown.

Historic Narrative

The George O. Kolb Bakery was established in Hartford, Connecticut by George O. Kolb, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1913. Kolb was one of seven brothers involved in the baking and confectionary business and was born to a third generation of family bakers. The Kolbs organized the Kolb Bakery Company of Philadelphia in 1911, however, this was acquired by the massive conglomerate General Baking Company, which had been created by the merger of some 21 baking companies across the country in 1911, just months after both businesses had be organized. George O. Kolb in turn traveled to Hartford in October 1913, where he set up his own baking operation. At the time of its completion, the George O. Kolb bakery on Broad Street in Hartford was noted for its modern design and the cutting edge technology employed in the production of bread. Consumer preferences had shifted towards the desirability of factory-baked bread during the late-19th c. as large-scale bakeries touted the sanitary nature of bread produced by machines. Local articles announcing the arrival of the Kolb bakery in Hartford pronounced, ‘The baker’s name is George O. Kolb and, for all his three generations of bakers, his methods are the modern machine methods of making bread. From flour to loaf without a touch of the human hand summarizes the history of the making of Kolb’s bread and contains many assurances of sanitary safety.’ Kolb’s plant used a variety of tubes and chutes to move flour from storage to the mixing rooms, and wheeled vats and conveyor belts to move dough and loafs from preparation to packaging in waxed paper. The firm’s product, known as Pan-Dandy bread, met with instant success and required a substantial expansion to the Broad Street plant in 1916. The George O. Kolb bakery remained in operation until 1923, when it too was acquired by the General Baking Company. By this point in time the General Baking Company had streamlined its output to just one product, a loaf of white bread known as ‘Bond Bread,’ due to the guarantee that the firm provided with each loaf that assured the bread would contain only pure and nutritive ingredients. By the mid-1930s, the popularity of Bond Bread had resulted in expansion of the General Baking Company to 47 bakeries and roughly 8000 employees. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, however, the company constantly clashed with its primary competitor, the Continental Baking Company, maker of Wonder Bread. Both firms increasingly sought to focus on the health benefits of bread after they began to enrich their products through the addition of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin D. By the 1950s and 1960s, however, the owners of General Baking faced decreasing profit margins as local supermarkets began to establish in-house bakeries that could often offer a fresher and less expensive product. The company attempted to expand and diversify, in the latter case even going so far as to purchase tourist facilities at Yellowstone and Everglades National Parks. The firm changed its name to the General Host Company in order to reflect this shift in 1967, and during the late-1960s and early-1970s began to sell off its bakeries. This impacted the Hartford facility in 1971 when the plant was closed and sold to the Max Sanders Trucking Company, a firm established in Hartford in 1923. The complex is currently occupied by Thomas W. Raftery, Inc., a manufacturer of curtains and draperies.

Number of Existing Buildings

Five (5) primary adjoining primary blocks.

Dates of Construction

1913, 1916, ca. 1922, ca. 1926, ca. 1945.

Architect

n/a

Builder

n/a

Building Type

• Mill
• Warehouse / Production Shed

Architectural Description

The former George O. Kolb Bakery is comprised of five primary adjoining blocks located on the west side of Broad Street, at the southwest corner of Broad Street’s intersection with Jefferson Street. The plant’s main and original block is a one- and two-story, 74’ x 130’ red brick building erected in 1913. This was originally seven bays wide yet was enlarged to a total of 12 bays in 1916 when a 67’ x 130’ red brick addition was built adjoining the south elevation of the plant. The combined building has a highly-detailed white marble façade on its first story, this broken into 12, large, round-arched window bays, which at the time of the original construction drew praise from local newspapers as giving the building, ‘the air of a school or office building.’ There is a marble cornice dividing the first and second stories of the façade and segmental-arched window openings with marble sills and keystones on the second floor. The two adjoining blocks have a plain, unified red brick cornice and parapet and a flat roof. A clerestory monitor is located over a portion of the building that stands only one-and-a-half-stories tall. Various red brick additions were erected adjoining the north and west elevations of the 1913 and 1916 blocks during the mid-20th century. A one-story, 54’x 122’ red brick block with a flat roof was built adjoining the west elevation of the 1916 addition ca. 1922. This housed a wagon shed and small cruller bakery, both having frontage on Madison Street to the south where a detailed red brick façade with several window and door openings are visible. Another one-story addition was completed to the north ca. 1926, this with a roughly rectangular footprint measuring 128’ x 94’. This adjoins the west elevation of the 1913 block and has a plain façade with several plain door and window openings fronting on Jefferson Street to the north. The final addition to the plant was completed ca. 1945, when a one-story, 63’ x 135’ red brick block was built adjoining the north elevation of the 1916 building. This has a concrete foundation, red brick walls, large rectangular window openings with detailed brick spandrels and concrete sills, a plain brick cornice, and flat roof.

Exterior Material(s)

• Brick
• Stone

Structural System(s)

• Load Bearing Masonry

Roof Form

• Clerestory Monitor
• Flat
• Monitor

Roof Material

• Asphalt
• Tar and Gravel

Power Source

• Electricity

Condition

Good

Condition Notes

The complex is in good condition. Some of the exterior walls are in need of cleaning and some of the original windows have been replaced or boarded up, however, the plant appears well maintained overall.

Specific Location

One legal parcel (1055 Broad Street) totaling 1.24 acres located on the west side of Broad Street, at the southwest corner of Broad Street’s intersection with Jefferson Street and with frontage on both Jefferson and Madison Streets.

Listed in Frog Hollow National Register District (1979).
http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=b5571cd8-a33d-4a36-b68e-f3ef4498233c

Adjacent To

• Main Roads

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Parcel ID / Assessor Record Link

• 205/529/108 (for record, use link and type in address or parcel number) / Link →

Acreage

1.24

Use (Present)

• Commercial
• Other: 64,500 sq ft; for sale 1/2023, still 4/2024

Form Completed By

Lucas A. Karmazinas

Date

09/01/2015

Bibliography

1. List of Connecticut Manufacturers, 1922, 1924, 1930, 1932.
2. Directory of Connecticut State Manufacturers, 1936, 1939.
3. Industrial Directory of Connecticut, 1947.
4. Register of War Production Facilities in Connecticut, 1951.
5. Map of Hartford County, H & C.T. Smith, 1855.
6. Atlas of Hartford County, Beers, Baker & Tilden, 1869.
7. Sanborn Map Company, 1885, 1900, 1917, 1920, 1923, 1950.
8. Aerial Survey of Connecticut, 1934, 1965.
9. Hartford City Directories, Various editions.
10. The Hartford Courant, 1913, 1916, 1923, 1924, 1930, 1936, 1945, 1971.
11. Ransom, David F. and Merle E. Kummer. 1979. Frog Hollow Historic District National Register Nomination No. 79002635. National Park Service.