Factory Tours

Factory Tours USA

Celebrating American Imagination and Industry!

Factory Tours USA

14 Tours found using "maine"

Angell & Phelps Chocolate Factory
Daytona Beach, FL

Latitude/Longitude
29.210973,-81.0183519

In 1925, two women, Riddell Angell and Cora Phelps, started the company that bears their names. They would spend the summers in the resort town of Mackinac Island, Michigan, where they also had a shop, and the winters here in Daytona Beach. At the start of WWII, they had to close the shop in Michigan.

While I have told this story thousands of times, I?m still amazed every time I think about it. First of all, I doubt that many women in the 20?s were able to start a business. On top of that, these gutsy ladies were making chocolates ...
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Cold River Vodka
Freeport, ME

Latitude/Longitude
43.855515,-70.105892

The idea for Cold River Vodka originated with brothers Lee and Donnie Thibodeau. Growing up in Presque Isle, the heart of Maine?s potato country, they listened to their father and uncles tell about their history of turning potatoes into vodka. However, the realities of tending to the potato crop and the rigors of the annual harvest left little time.

Five years ago, the idea of commercially producing vodka resurfaced between Donnie and Lee as they were driving back to their childhood home in Presque Isle. After years of thinking of business ideas and talking about the future of Maine?s potato ...
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Columbus Washboard Company
Logan, OH

Latitude/Longitude
39.540182,-82.41332

The Columbus Washboard Company is proud to be the last remaining Manufacturer of genuine Washboards in the USA. Our company was founded in 1895 in Columbus and remained in the Grandview area until it was purchased by an investment group in Logan in 1999. The complete factory was moved to the old shoe factory in Logan just 50 miles south east of Columbus, in June of 1999.

We welcome tourists to our factory daily for an informal 30 minute tour. We still have in our facility all of the old machinery and presses that have produced our washboards for ...
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Conrad Rice Mill
New Iberia, LA

Latitude/Longitude
29.998194,-91.810931

The Conrad Rice Mill is the oldest rice mill in America. It is also one of the leading tourist attractions in this area of the Bayou Teche. In 1981, the Mill was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

P.A. Conrad founded the Conrad Rice Mill and Planting Company in 1912. He would cut the rice by hand and let it sun-dry on the levees before putting the rice in the threshers. The rice was poured into 100-pound bags and taken to the mill. At that time, the mill operated only three to four months out of the year. ...
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Domaine Carneros
Napa, CA

Latitude/Longitude
38.252407,-122.35608

Located in the heart of the Carneros region, Domaine Carneros stands alone as the only sparkling wine producer using exclusively Carneros grapes. The Carneros Appellation is the first American Viticultural appellation to be defined according to climate rather than along political lines. The appellation is characterized by a long, moderately cool growing season tempered by the maritime breezes and lingering fog off the San Pablo Bay just to the south. These are optimum growing conditions for pinot noir and chardonnay, the two primary grape varieties used in Domaine Carneros wines.

Domaine Carneros farms 195 planted acres of vineyards on three ...
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Haven's Candies
Westbrook, ME

Latitude/Longitude
43.650528,-70.347037

Herbert Haven founded Haven's Candies in 1915, after following his sweetheart from Boston to Portland. They courted and married, and soon Herbert and his new wife were handcrafting candies in their kitchen and selling them from the front parlor of their house on Forest Avenue.

As the son of skilled candy makers, Herbert brought both premium quality and creative originality to his products. Over the years many confectioners have come and gone in Maine, but few have stood the test of time like Haven's.

Today, Haven's continues to thrive by sticking to its roots. We still handcraft our candies ...
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Herbaria Soap
St Louis, MO

Latitude/Longitude
38.615308,-90.271969

Our soap making business began when I tried to find a mild natural soap that would moisturize my skin rather than dry it out,? said LaRee DeFreece. ?I was looking for a soap made with one hundred percent natural plant-based ingredients and enriched with emollients.?

In late 2000, she decided to make her own soap. She had discovered that even the mildest of soaps was made of petrochemicals rather than natural ingredients. Searching the Internet, she came upon soap recipes and began testing them.

?That first recipe resulted in a soap that was truly disgusting, but I soon found one ...
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Lane Packing Company
Fort Valley, GA

Latitude/Longitude
32.55515,-83.828599

Originally founded in 1908 by our great-grandfather John David Duke, the farm was named Diamond Fruit Farm. In addition, John David Duke owned a facility that manufactured basket liners and built a peach packinghouse in 1942 that was named J.D. Duke. In 1950 he changed the name of this business to Southern Orchard Supply Co. but business was taken over by his son-in-law David O. Lane, and grandson, Duke Lane, Sr. The farming name remained the same but the packing portion of the business became Lane Packing Company.

Following the retirement of his father, David O. Lane, Duke Lane, ...
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Nora Mill Granary Grist Mill & Country Store
Helen, GA

Latitude/Longitude
34.6924,-83.714019

Nora Mill Granary - an authentic working grist mill that is nestled alongside the Chattahoochee River. At Nora Mill, we grind corn daily using either the original French burr stones that are water powered by the Chattahoochee River - or by our more modern "Meal Master" stone grinding system located on our second floor. Either way, all product is all natural and is stone ground.

Nora Mill Granary, Inc. Est. 1876

About the mill . . . .

Nora Mill Granary is an operational gristmill sitting alongside the Chattahoochee River in the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains that stone ...
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Old Doc?s Soda Shop
Dublin, TX

Latitude/Longitude
32.0842993,-98.3426355

In 1885 Waco, Texas was a wild frontier town, nicknamed ?six-shooter junction.? Wade Morrison?s Old Corner Drug Store was a prominent business and popular meeting place in downtown Waco. People came in for everything from flea powder to stationery, from cigars to fountain drinks.

One of Morrison?s employees, pharmacist Charles Alderton, noticed how customers loved the smell of the soda fountain with its many fruit, spice and berry aromas. He wanted to invent a drink that tasted the wonderful way the soda fountain smelled. After much experimentation he finally felt he had hit on ?something different.? Patrons at the drug ...
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Rock of Ages Quarry
Graniteville (Barre Town), VT

Latitude/Longitude
44.154001,-72.492528

Central Vermont was built upon the granite industry, the offspring of
pure Yankee tenacity and immigrant fortitude. Rock of Ages, founded by
two native Vermonters and one Scotsman, epitomizes the rich cultural
heritage of Barre, Vermont. Rock of Ages represents a living industry,
not a museum or showcase, but a working, breathing entity that gives
rise to some of the finest artistry in stone that our guests have ever
seen.

We invite you and your family to experience Rock of Ages. Our narrated
shuttle tours take you to the world's largest deep-hole, ...
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Taylor Guitars
El Cajon, CA

Latitude/Longitude
32.824577,-116.984499

Seated in his neat, spacious office in Taylor Guitars' factory complex in El Cajon, California, company co-founder and CEO Kurt Listug cannot stifle a laugh as he studies a faded snapshot. The photograph, mined from the depths of an old cardboard box filled with dusty memorabilia, depicts the original Taylor shop on its very first day of existence -- October 15, 1974.

On the left, pony-tailed, 22-year-old employee Tim Luranc is examining something, while then-part-owner Steve Schemmer shovels water from the floor into a bucket. A companion photo shows the adjoining room on the same day. Crude, garish, overhead ...
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Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers
Auburn, ME

Latitude/Longitude
44.09776,-70.229289

Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers was founded over a quarter century ago to restore the lost art of fine woodworking. Formerly a Bates college professor, Tom Moser left teaching in 1973 to start making one-of-a-kind furniture in an old Grange Hall in New Gloucester, Maine. His wife Mary managed the selling and finances, while their four sons trained as young apprentices.

There was no business plan, no product, no sense of marketing and to their banker?s horror, no cash or cash flow.

The first advertisement which ran in Down East magazine read, "Antiques are prized for their qualities of age, ...
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Union Star Cheese
Zittau, WI

Latitude/Longitude
44.2168220,-88.7879500

Union Star -- making quality cheese for more than a century
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It all began with the age-old question of ?low fat.?

In the early 1900s, almost all Wisconsin dairy farmers sold their milk to local cheese factories. The introduction of the ?Babcock Test? - a method for determining the butterfat content of milk ? led to scaled pricing of milk based on fat content. Simply put, cheese factories were only willing to pay top dollar for milk with a high fat content. Thirteen farmers including our Great Grand Uncle, Henry Metzig, were upset that their milk was considered ?low ...
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