Columbia Wagon Works

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Columbia Wagon Works is a Late Victorian industrial complex of seven contributing buildings at 920 Plane St. in Columbia Borough, Lancaster County, built in stages from 1889 to about 1930.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and C, with local-level significance in industry and architecture. Its period of significance runs from 1889, when the Columbia Wagon Company was formed, to 1926, by which the wagon works had closed.

Physical character

The buildings stand on stone foundations with brick walls and roofs of asphalt, slate and rubber, arranged in an H-shaped cluster with corbeled brick detailing and a terra cotta coped parapet. A one-story rear addition was built around 1900 to 1904, and a cylindrical metal water tower with a brick pump house was added around 1930.

Historical context

The 1870s industrial boom in Columbia Borough was followed in 1889 by the founding of the Columbia Wagon Company, which manufactured wagons through its period of significance and added auto and truck body manufacture in 1921 as the Columbia Wagon and Body Company. The works had closed by 1926, and the buildings were converted to a sixty-unit apartment complex that opened in 1996, replacing their historic manufacturing use with multiple dwellings at listing.