Squirrel Brand

We dis­cov­ered an inter­est­ing urban story on a walk we took this past week­end, down Colum­bia Street in Cam­bridge map… the famous Squir­rel Brand candy and nut com­pany fac­tory, made famous by 90′s swing-​revivalists Squir­rel Nut Zip­pers, (don’t let that turn you off).

After decades of pro­duc­tion, the com­pany moved on, but the city and com­mu­nity stepped in and con­verted the build­ing and grounds to afford­able housing:

The Squir­rel Brand build­ing had to be gutted. Its 132 6-by-8-foot win­dows, 12.5-foot ceil­ings, and wood floors had been sat­u­rated by more than eight decades of molasses steam. Just-A-Start offi­cials esti­mate a cost of $6 mil­lion to ren­o­vate the fac­tory and two smaller build­ings the orga­ni­za­tion pur­chased nearby. But they say they remain com­mit­ted to saving the build­ing rather than lev­el­ing it.

Also, I had no idea just how much candy was man­u­fac­tured here… Necco, Tootsie-​Roll, Squir­rel Brand:

In 1928, at the height of an era when Cam­bridge pro­duced most of the treats that sat­is­fied the nation’s sugar crav­ing, 32 con­fec­tionary man­u­fac­tur­ers flour­ished within the city limits. They took ships’ holds full of sugar or molasses from the West Indies and turned it into gooey, sticky, and choco­latey treats.

Unfor­tu­nately, only a Toot­sie sub­sidiary remains on Main Street…