History of the Museum

The museum’s mission is to celebrate our industrial heritage through preserving, collecting, and educating the public, with emphasis on our own neighborhood to tell a national story. At the heart of this story—are the people who created and lived this history, and how their work and lives can inform ours today.

The museum was founded by local resident, Leon Weeks, and incorporated in 1996 as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The board and dedicated volunteers have been hard at work preserving, collecting, and documenting artifacts and related archival material—from the smallest tap and die to the large 19th century machines made right at our own site.

The original home of the museum was in an old farmhouse on the property of the Green River School in Greenfield on Petty Plain Rd. Originally planned as an organization to preserve the history of Greenfield Tap & Die Corp. the scope expanded to cover Franklin County. Alan Barrows a former plant manager at GTD and Professor Jay Stryker among others initiated the effort. The first President of the Museum was Jim Greene. In 2000 our founder Leon Weeks died unexpectantly and a new group of directors was formed. From that group James Terapane, Albert Shane, Jay Styker continue to be officers. In 2007 Al Shane and James Terapane purchased the Newell Snow Factory (Greenfield Steel Stamp Works building) and shorty after that the museum moved to that location.

Our collection includes our historic mill site home, many artifacts of local industry, and an archive of documents, photographs, movie films and sound recordings, that might otherwise have been lost without our effort. Once society has lost the material evidence of history, new research becomes impossible. Our archives are available for research through Scholars In Residence Grants or by other formal arrangements with the Museum. Archives and Artifacts are cataloged and lists are available by request. Plans are underway to digitize the collection and have it available online.

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