Eastern Specialties Company, later rebranded ESCO, continued to flourish in the 1960s. In 1968, the company required more space to carry out its production. The building’s owner, Holyoke Water Power Company, had a 5,000-square-foot addition erected. The work was performed by the Edward J. O’Leary Company.
The work also included structural improvements to the existing building. Steel plates were installed on the floor, enabling ESCO to stack 4 1,000-pound rolls on top of one another. This vertical storage facilitated having more paper on hand to produce its products.
In 1970, ESCO employees started another company, Autron, which was later sold to Murebeni Paper Sales Corp. Autron will be further explored with findings revealed in the next installment.
By 1969. ESCO was occupying all four floors of the building and 2 basements. The two prior upper-floor tenants, Gravure Engraving, had previously moved to the Springdale Industrial Park, and Nonotuck Wire relocated to South Hadley Falls.
In 1970 and 1971, the company was awarded over $600,000 in federal government contracts to supply typewriter paper. The contracts were announced by Congressman Sylvio O. Conte and Senator Edward W. Brooke.
In 1974, Eastern Specialties purchased the 4-story, 64,000 square-foot factory building at 2 Appleton Street from J T. Downey Realty Corporation. The building was previously home to Holyoke Wire and Cable Company. The company continued operations at 5 Appleton Street, and the use of the newly acquired building was not discernible.
In 1981, Richard Nickerson, then company President, was awarded Business Person of the Year by the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce. The award was bestowed in recognition of his contributions to the city.
In late September 1989, Eastern Specialties was also sold to Murebeni Paper Sales Corporation, a holding company run by Yoshikazu Nakano of South Hadley. One of the sale’s stipulations was that the 55 employees in Holyoke and 20 in Northfield, Illinois, retain their jobs. The announcement was made by Mr. Nickerson, who was Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Paul Coady, Company President.
The company was shown as merged with Autron, using the latter as the consolidated company’s name. There were about 100 employees. Due to the 1991 recession, 45% of Autron’s workforce was laid off.
In 2000, the assets of Autron, then owned by Miami Systems of Cincinnati, Ohio, were sold to Graphics Controls of Buffalo, New York. A sampling of the new owner’s products was reviewed from its current website, and reveals some former Eastern Specialties products shown at the end of this presentation.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
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