4.9. Stephen A. Greene Fireworks Company
The main industry for the original White River & Northern was the Stephen A. Greene Charcoal Company. There's not much to say about it other than it was 100% Pure Fantasy; it was not based on anything in real life. Regrettably I never got a good clear shot of it.
The Greystone & Rock Bottom was a different story. I'd conceived it as a furniture factory, but before long it became a quarry stone cutting shed. This beast is a mashup of an N Scale Architect's Gruber Wagon Works, with chunks of Showcase Miniatures' O.H. Wright Company, RS LaserKits' Will's Farm Supply, and a few other bits and bobs.
It was recycled for the Mountain Vista Railroad as a bottling plant that quickly morphed into a brewery.
The new layout makes use of the building, complete with working turbine vents, as-is. However, instead of a brewery, it's now a fireworks factory, because... why not? As such, I added a fireworks effect. Also, the desk fan from the Mountain Vista law office is located in the factory office.
Reference
Strange to think this building has represented so many different industries: furniture factory, granite cutting shed, bottling plant, brewery, and now fireworks factory. It's not too far removed from the National Fireworks Company in Hanover, Massachusetts, shown below circa 1907.
Named For
While on vacation in New Hampshire one summer when I was young, my family encountered a couple from Rhode Island, and it turned out we were distant relatives. Stephen A. Greene was a wonderful old gentleman, and I quickly adopted him as the grandfather I never had. I still miss the dear man terribly—taking walks through the woods together behind his summer home, looking for wildflowers, listening to his war stories, and devouring his wife Dorothy's fantastic fresh blueberry pie... And now you know why the name Stephen A. Greene appears on nearly every layout I've ever built.