Thomas Gustave Plant - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Thomas_Gustave_Plant

Thomas Gustave Plant

Thomas Gustave Plant (1859–1941) was born in Bath, ME, the son of French-Canadian immigrants, who
made his fortune manufacturing shoes under the Queen Quality Shoes label. His largest shoe factory, the
Thomas G. Plant Shoe Factory (1896-1976) stood at the corner of Centre and Bickford streets
(https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=centre+street+and+bickford+street,+jamaica+plain+02130)
in Jamaica Plain (a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts). Marketing materials from the factory proclaimed
it to be the largest shoe factory in the world.[1]

The factory boasted numerous innovations and amenities for its

workers, including an adjacent park at the corner of Centre and
Walden streets. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.,
and completed in 1913.[2] He also started a nursery and kindergarten
on site, for the children of his workers. [3]

Plant used his fortune to build Lucknow, an estate on a mountain

overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee in Moultonborough, New Thomas G. Plant Shoe Factory,
Hampshire, where he lived with his second wife. Plant lost a circa 1900
considerable amount of his wealth investing in Russian bonds and in
Cuban sugar, and then went into bankruptcy following the collapse of
the stock exchange in 1929. His creditors allowed him to live in his home even as they dissolved his estate.
Nearly the entire estate and its grounds have been repurchased by a preservation trust, and is now known as
the Castle in the Clouds, a tourist attraction.

The factory changed hands several times in the 20th century, and by the 1970s was used as artist workspaces.
It burned in 1976 in a dramatic fire,[4] the burned-out hulk becoming known locally as "the ruins." The site was
redeveloped in the 1990s as a strip mall and supermarket.

The Plant Home

In 1917, Thomas Plant built The Plant Home, an assisted living home, in Bath, Maine. His reasons for doing so
have become the vision of the home.

"This home is founded on my sincere belief that those who have lived honest, industrious lives
and are without means or friends to care for them, have earned the right to be cared for. Only
through the labor and expenditures of others is it possible..."

Mr. Plant endowed the home with 3,300 shares of his shoe company, equating to $400,000 at the time. The
home sits on the banks of the Kennebec River in Bath and provides private apartments and assisted living care
to low-income elders.

References

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Thomas Gustave Plant - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gustave_Plant

1. Tom Plant: The Making of a Franco-American Entrepreneur, 1859-1941 (Studies in Entrepreneurship), by

Barry Hatfield Rodrigue, Garland Publishing (1994), ISBN 0-8153-0988-0.
2. Olmsted Archives (http://www.nps.gov/frla/archives.htm), Job Number 03792, Thomas G. Plant Company,
Roxbury, Massachusetts (09 Grounds of Commercial & Industrial Buildings).
3. JP Historical Society (https://www.jphs.org/locales/2004/1/5/thomas-g-plant-shoe-factory-operated-
nursery.html?rq=plant), Thomas G. Plant Shoe Factory Operated Nursery from Boston Daily Globe on
June 23, 1918
4. The Shoe Factory’s Demise: Jamaica Plain’s Most Unforgettable Fire, by Walter H. Marx, Jamaica Plain
Gazette: Jamaica Plain, MA. August 9, 1991.

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