Marietta was once a much more industrial town than it is today, with several factories in the heart of the community. A stove company occupied the area where the Corps of Engineers is now located and a company making safes was a short streetcar ride down Greene Street. Right next to Marietta College sat the Marietta Chair Company, a large and successful company that produced chairs, sofas and other furniture.

A photo of the company during its peak can be found on page 2 of today’s Times. The photo has an odd feeling of familiarity to it. Go ahead and take another look. The photo was taken about from the crosswalk at the base of the hill at Seventh and Putnam streets. At that time the high school was on the top of the hill. The same building is now an elementary school. All the buildings that you see in the photo were part of the chair factory, some would later become part of Marietta College. Only one, Mills Hall, remains, and at seven stories, it is one of the largest buildings in Marietta. Mills is the building on the far-right side of the photo.

The tie between the chair factory and the college is one that goes back to the 1800s. Marietta Chair Company operated on the six acres of land that sits between Butler and Putnam streets and Seventh and Sixth streets. The land had once been farmed by students before being sold to the college in the mid-1800s to the chair company.

Col. John Mills, one of the original trustees of the college and a successful Marietta businessman, took over the Glessner Furniture Company that was operating on Sixth Street in 1861 and started building the furniture company into the business that would operate for 82 years. At the peak of production, the factory supported wholesale outlets in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City, New York and Philadelphia.

Following War World II, the college had a desperate need for housing at the same time the chair company was in the process of dissolving. The land and the buildings were sold to the college. One of the production buildings became Douglas Putnam Hall, which housed college students for decades. A pair of modern dorms were later built next to it along Seventh Street, and the office building at Sixth and Putnam was turned into a classroom building, opening in 1946 as Mills Hall to house the school’s chemistry, physics and petroleum programs.

Mills Hall has been many things over the years, including a temporary library during construction of the college’s Legacy Library. It houses the Communication and Psychology departments. Some of the offices retain the charm of their former lives, including hardwood floors, high ceilings and fireplaces. On the back side of the building, you can still see where the building connected to the nearby factory.

The place where the factory once sat now has Harrison Hall, as well as the twin buildings that make up McCoy Hall. The former lumber yard is a large parking lot for students.

If you are lucky enough to have a chair from the Marietta Chair Company in your home, you own an important part of Marietta history.

Art Smith is online manager for The Marietta Times, he can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com.