"This photo, taken from the top of Melvin Street, shows the wooden buildings of the rattan factory established by Cyrus Wakefield. Wakefield, for whom the town was named in 1868, brought his growing enterprise to South Reading in 1855 on land he purchased on Water Street. The site consisted of two mill ponds, one on each side of the road, and a few buildings used for manufacturing purposes. Nearly all the buildings, including the Stout Building pictured to the right of the smokestack, named for prominent citizen and large shareholder Richard S. Stout, were destroyed in the great fire of 1881. The company rebuilt and was said to be 'the largest business of its kind in the world." Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2014 Photo courtesy of JC Marketing Associates
![Haywood [i.e. Heywood] Bros. and Wakefield Co., Wakefield, Mass.](https://bpldcassets.blob.core.windows.net/derivatives/metadata/commonwealth-oai:t148m171p/image_thumbnail_300.jpg)
