The Norwich Lock Manufacturing Company was founded in 1872 along the banks of the Shetucket River. The company would become one of the nation’s premier producers of a wide range of builder’s hardware including mortise locks, padlocks, door knobs, door handles, hinges and window locks. While other major lock manufacturers focused solely on more utilitarian designs for their consumer locks, the Norwich manufacturer created a specialized line of decorative cast-iron “story padlocks” and other types of ornamental hardware. The intricate patterned design of their locks created an aesthetic value that was appreciated by a wealthier demographic group in American society that had become an integral part of the Gilded Age in America.
By 1888, their product line and marketing strategy had positioned the Norwich firm as one of the top three manufacturers of locks in the United States. During the year 1890, the company employed approximately 250 workers, utilizing a three-story factory with an iron foundry onsite and an overall capacity to produce 300 dozen locks and an equal number of door knobs each day. The company’s continued success created the need for increased factory space in order to expand production. There wasn’t the physical real estate available to expand its operations in Norwich. In order to expand its manufacturing base, the company accepted an offer from the city of Roanoke, Virginia in 1892 to relocate their entire operation to a newly created industrial park.
The relocation to Roanoke seemed to be a prudent business decision providing the company with the requisite water power of the nearby Roanoke River and the proximity of major rail lines for product transport. Most important, there was the abundant available physical space to construct a larger factory to fuel the company’s market growth. The company’s 1892 catalog presents the image of a modern dynamically creative company with a robust line of products.
What no one had been able to foresee was total national economic turmoil that would arrive with the nation-wide financial collapse in the Panic of 1893. The panic led to widespread bank failures with over 15,000 U.S. businesses going bankrupt. The American manufacturing sector saw total output decline by a devastating thirty percent and a major economic depression that would last for four years.
The Norwich Lock Manufacturing Co. having incurred the high costs of moving to Virginia coupled with the debt of a new and larger factory experienced a significant financial burden. Additionally, the economic turndown created a business climate conducive to the mergers of the Norwich company’s rivals in the lock manufacturing industry. These consolidated companies provided a competitive threat to smaller individual lock manufacturers like the Norwich company.
Facing a perfect storm of a national economic crisis coupled with the ill-timed costs of its business expansion in Roanoke, the company struggled along for another fourteen years with their share of the builder’s hardware market steadily eroding. The Norwich Lock Manufacturing Company finally closed down its entire operation in 1905.