Founded in the 1840s, over the next forty years the Harlan and Hollingsworth company constructed 232 vessels, including Saugus (1863) and two other Civil War monitors. A William Boell lithograph shows the sixty-building facility in 1878. In 1887, the works covered forty-three acres, and by 1900, the Harlan firm was one of the top four shipbuilders in the nation, famous for, among other things, the palatial steel steam yacht Alva for William K. Vanderbilt. Business boomed during World War I, with twenty-four ships produced, and the company hired legendary Joseph “Shoeless Joe” Jackson to play on its wartime Steel League baseball team. Shipbuilding ceased in 1926, but the construction of railroad cars continued for a time. The three-story headquarters, a Colonial Revival late work by Frank Furness

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trained architect Dallett, was spared the wrecking ball and restored in 1987. Much of the building's interest lies in its retaining its original, many-paned metal windows and copper bays.