Two years later, after a fire that damaged the factory and halted
operations in 1853, the gentlemen moved their operation to
Woodberry Road, just north of a nameless branch of the Jones Falls
at the foot of Tempest Hill. The new plant, coined Union Machine
Shops, housed Poole and Hunt’s general offices, an iron foundry,
erecting and pattern shops, a melting house and stables. Instantly
it became the backbone of the Woodberry/Hampden community,
employing thousands of men as it grew to become the country’s
largest machine manufacturing plant. The Foundry, complete with
railroad siding and tracks for moving raw material and finished
product, was home to the first looms for producing “cotton duck,”
the cloth used for the sails during the first World War.