The Miller Corset Factory

Photo Courtesy of 43 North Real Estate

The story of this site begins with a simple set of numbers. It covers 1.63 acres. At its center stands a four-story, 80,000 square foot building. Around it sit a parking lot, two driveways, and a small strip of grass along the north side. To anyone driving by, it might look like an ordinary old industrial property, the kind you see in many towns.

What you cannot see from the street is the long environmental story written into the ground beneath it.

For years, this property was used in ways that left behind more than just history. It became a brownfield, a place where past industrial activity left pollution in the soil and groundwater. Today, the land has undergone a cleanup, focused on two serious “hot spots” of contamination tied to a chemical called trichloroethene, or TCE.

TCE is a common industrial solvent. It is often used to remove grease from metal parts, a routine step in many factories and repair shops. The problem starts when TCE is spilled or dumped instead of being handled with care. Once it reaches the ground, it does not simply disappear. TCE can soak into soil, move with groundwater below the surface, and even travel as vapor through tiny spaces in the earth.

On this site, testing found two main areas where TCE levels were especially high. One hot spot lies beneath the southern part of the building. The other sits just outside, near the southwest corner. In these areas, the soil was contaminated enough that it affected the water beneath the ground to a depth of about 20 feet.

That contamination did not stay put. TCE in the groundwater has moved off the property to the west, carried slowly by natural underground water flow. Tracking and addressing that movement has been a key part of the cleanup effort.

TCE is not the only concern here. The site once held fifteen underground storage tanks, which were removed back in 1990. Tanks like these are often used to store gasoline or other fuels. Over time, especially if tanks corrode or leak, they can release chemicals into the soil. In this case, gasoline, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, known as PAHs, and various metals are all part of the list of contaminants that had to be evaluated and addressed.

Standing perpendicular across from Canandaigua City Hall, the four-story brick building at 10 Chapin Street looks solid and quiet. It is more than 100 years old, 80,000 square feet of heavy masonry and long windows that hint at another time.

For most people passing by, it is just an old factory. In truth, it is one of the city’s most hardworking buildings, a place that has reinvented itself time and again as the country's needs and the economy have changed.

The building first gained local importance as the home of the Miller Corset Company, from the 1920s to the 1940s, part of what was then the largest manufacturer of women’s corsets in the United States. At the height of the corset era, thousands of women wore garments that shaped their bodies, and places like this kept that industry going. E. C. Miller did not start at the top of the corset business. He worked his way there, one factory at a time. He entered the trade in 1893 with the Warner Brothers Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a major name in corsets at the time. Five years later, he moved to the McGraw Corset Company, then on to the Empire Corset Company in McGraw, New York. Each move gave him more experience and a closer look at how the industry worked.

By 1908, Miller was ready to strike out on his own. He founded the Miller Corset Company in McGraw, New York. The business grew, and in 1914, he moved the main operation to Cortland. From there, he opened branch factories in several other communities, building a small network of plants that spread his products across the region.

When Canandaigua businessmen approached him about opening a factory in their city, Miller saw an opportunity. By 1921, he agreed to establish a new plant in Canandaigua. In July 1921, the plan for a new factory in Canandaigua became real on paper and on the ground. Three lots on the north side of Chapin Street, near the corner of South Main, were purchased for the project. To put up the building, the company turned to a trusted local name. Roda Hogan, one of Canandaigua’s best-known builders, was hired to construct the plant. For the plumbing and heating work, they brought in A. A. Sterling. It did not stop there. In 1924, he moved all branches of the Miller Corset Company, including the original Cortland operation, to Canandaigua. That decision to consolidate everything under one roof made the company more efficient and more profitable. 

Then the world went to war.

During World War II, the factory floor shifted from fashion to defense as many of the materials used in making corsets became scarce. Instead of corsets, workers produced silk parachutes for bombs, rifle pouches, sleeping bags, and signal flares. The same skills used to cut, sew, and assemble clothing were turned toward wartime needs. That change showed how adaptable both the factory and its workforce could be, and how a local plant could plug into national efforts almost overnight. However, the company only survived until 1944 when it closed its operations for good and moved to a smaller facility in North Carolina. 

That year, after the Miller Corset Company closed, a firm called Commercial Controls Corporation moved into part of the old factory. They had a U.S. government contract to manufacture sub mortar shell fuses for the war effort. When World War II ended in 1945, that operation shut down as well. The Miller brothers tried to bring corset making back to the building after the war, but the business never really came back to life. The market had changed, and the company was unable to return to its former strength.

Long before all this, the property itself had already seen industrial use. From the 1880s into the 1910s, the site served as a coal yard for Holden and Son Coal and Wood and Geo. T. Thompson’s Coal & Wood Yard, supplying fuel to homes and businesses in Canandaigua. Over time, from 1921 through 1959, the building and land changed hands several times and were put to many different uses. One of the most colorful chapters involved bicycles and tricycles.

In 1946, the E. C. Brown Company of Rochester, a major manufacturer of agricultural, garden, and lawn equipment, became interested in the old Miller building. They wanted it for one of their subsidiaries that made Velo-King tricycles. To make the deal, they purchased the building under the name Spencerport Ordnance Inc., then opened the plant as the Canandaigua Velocipede Company.

Velo-King tricycles were a well-known brand in the United States, and for a time, the Chapin Street building helped produce them. But the good run did not last. By 1949, the Canandaigua Velocipede Company went bankrupt.

In 1950, the building went up for auction. It was purchased by Lester Boyce. That same year, the Reo Manufacturing Motor Company of Lansing, Michigan, bought all the equipment and supplies from the former Velocipede operation and shipped them to its plant in Lansing. Reo then temporarily leased the Miller building from Boyce and used it to make service parts for the velocipedes still being produced in Michigan.

The story turned again in 1951. The E. C. Brown Company decided to close its original Rochester plant, which had been in operation since 1899, and repurchased the Miller building from Lester Boyce. E. C. Brown was known worldwide for its sprayers, dusters, and other hardware used in farming and gardening. From Canandaigua, it supplied products for both domestic and foreign markets.

By 1959, however, E. C. Brown itself went bankrupt. At that point, the building was bought by Howard Samuels, president of the Kordite Corporation. Samuels used the factory mainly for storage and for manufacturing work tied to Kordite products.

In 1960, after several months of talks, Samuels sold the Miller building to the Labelon Corporation of Rochester, New York. 

By 1960, it would find its longest-running tenant: Labelon, a growing manufacturer tied to the world of office work, printing, and coated papers. Labelon’s story does not begin in Canandaigua, or even under that name. It starts in Rochester in 1927 with the founding of the Rochester Ribbon & Carbon Company, a business that supplied typewriter ribbons and carbon paper.

In 1947, a businessman named E. Billings Brewster bought the company. He renamed it the American Ribbon & Carbon Company and began a period of rapid growth. Brewster was not new to the industry. He had worked at Eastman Kodak as a statistician, then became assistant comptroller at Fasco Industries in 1942. He brought that mix of numbers sense and management experience to his new company.

Two years later, in 1949, Brewster changed the course of his business with a new product. He marketed a patented “write-on-it” tape that quickly gained national success. That simple tape inspired a new name. Brewster called it Labelon, then used that word to rename his entire corporation. Between 1947 and 1960, the Labelon Corporation in Rochester expanded by adding several related divisions. Along with the Labelon Tape Company and the American Ribbon & Carbon Company, it took in: Phillips Ribbon & Carbon Company, Crown Ribbon & Carbon Company, Tab-Edged Systems, and Corona Supply Company. These divisions stayed within a common field. They produced ribbons and carbon paper for typewriters, as well as supplies for business machines.

Other parts of the company focused on coated papers. The Record-a-Graph Paper and Stylograph Corporations produced wax-coated papers for business forms and instrument recording charts. Brewster Enterprises did custom coating work, applying different adhesives to plastic films and paper for many uses. Labelon also stepped into the growing market for copying supplies through its Temp-a-Copy brand of office copying papers.

In 1960, the Labelon Corporation of Rochester purchased the old factory building in Canandaigua and began moving its operations to 10 Chapin Street. The solid brick structure, with its large floors and central location, was a natural fit.

Over the next two decades, Labelon continued to broaden its product line. The company sold a wide range of office products and coated papers, including: computer papers and electrocardiogram papers, overhead transparency films, thermal copy and calculator papers, die-cut labels and embossing tape, and rubber stamp kits. And a host of small office items such as paper clips, fasteners, push pins, map tacks, signal systems, and thumb tacks

By the early 1970s, the 10 Chapin Street facility supported a workforce of between 150 and 200 employees. The building that once made corsets was now supplying the paperwork and supplies that kept modern offices running.

In 1973, Labelon made its first major expansion beyond the city. It built a new 20,000 square foot plant on Route 21 near the hamlet of Chapin in the Town of Hopewell.

That facility was designed to produce a special paper used in Texas Instruments computers. Over time, it came to represent a shift in the company’s focus, from basic office supplies toward copying and marketing products such as thermal fax papers.

The Canandaigua factory at 10 Chapin Street kept the office supplies division. The newer Hopewell plant handled more of the coated paper and specialized product lines. Eventually, Labelon sold off most of its office supply divisions and centered its business on thermal paper and coated films.

In 1990, the company announced another major expansion in Hopewell. It planned two new buildings next to the existing plant, including a new manufacturing facility of roughly 55,000 to 60,000 square feet. The aim was clear. Labelon wanted a stronger hold on the thermal fax paper market, which by the 1990s made up a large share of its business.

By the early 1990s, Labelon employed between 450 and 500 people across its Canandaigua and Hopewell locations. For a time, the company was a major local employer and a key piece of the region’s manufacturing base.

The success did not last. By the mid-1990s, the thermal fax paper market began to shrink. New fax machines that used plain paper replaced older models that needed special rolls of coated paper. That change hit Labelon hard.

The company worked to adjust. It moved into other products, including label stock for commercial printers and a variety of specialized and custom-coated films. It also bought a wide-format printer and film business, hoping to replace some of the lost fax paper sales.

Those efforts could not fully make up for the rapid decline in demand. As thermal fax paper faded from offices and copy rooms, Labelon’s revenues dropped. By 1997, the workforce had fallen to 192 employees. By 2002, only 66 remained.

Photos Courtesy of 43 North Real Estate

In July 2002, after years of shrinking sales and attempts to reinvent itself, the Labelon Corporation filed for bankruptcy. Both the 10 Chapin Street factory in Canandaigua and the Hopewell facilities closed their doors. The bankruptcy in July 2002 did not end the story of 10 Chapin Street. It only opened a long chapter of waiting.

After Labelon shut down, the building sat closed until it was auctioned off in September 2004 by local investor Greg Stahl. In 2011, DHD Ventures of Rochester purchased the property from Stahl. That ownership brought fresh hope that the old plant might find a new purpose. Even so, nothing lasting took hold, and the building continued to sit mostly idle.

Today, the property is owned by the Savarino Companies of Buffalo. Their goal has been to repurpose the former industrial building as a mixed-use complex, with offices on the first floor and housing above. Over the years, several other developers floated similar ideas, some with a stronger focus on commercial space and less on apartments, but those proposals never moved beyond the drawing board.

That long period of false starts has finally given way to a concrete plan. Joel Barrett, managing partner of 43 North Real Estate in Rochester, has put forward a redevelopment project that the city Planning Commission approved in July 2024. Under this plan, construction began on November 21, 2025.

The project will convert the four-story factory into a housing development called Hunter House, with a small commercial space available for lease at street level. If completed, it will mark a new life for the 100-year-old building, turning a once-busy factory and long-vacant brownfield into a place where people live, work, and walk in and out the front doors again.

Source(s):

1. Shaw, D. L. (2024, November 18). Groundbreaking set for conversion of Canandaigua's Labelon factory to housing. The Times. https://www.fltimes.com/news/groundbreaking-set-for-conversion-of-canandaiguas-labelon-factory-to-housing/article_7c0b99fd-e502-47fe-8417-770543e04495.html

2. FingerLakes1.com. (2025, November 19). Canandaigua factory to become 51 apartments. https://www.fingerlakes1.com/2025/11/19/canandaigua-factory-to-become-51-apartments/

3. Murphy, M. (2024, December 13). Apartments proposed for former Labelon site in Canandaigua, NY. Democrat and Chronicle. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2024/12/13/apartments-proposed-for-former-labelon-site-in-canandaigua-ny/76959386007/

4. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. (2017, August). Fact sheet: Brownfield cleanup program, former Labelon Corp. facility (Site #C835016) [Fact sheet]. https://www.dec.ny.gov/data/der/factsheets/c835016app.pdf

5. Harris Manufacturers Directory. (1993). United States: Harris Pub.

6. Morris, B. J. (2010). Administering the School Library Media Center. United States: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp561.

7. Directory. (1963). France: The Chamber.

8. Paper Trade Journal. (1961). United States: Vance Publishing Corporation. pp19.

9. The National Stationer. (1962). United States: National Stationers Association. pp.189

10. McKittrick's Directory of Advertisers. (1963). United States: George McKittrick. pp.477.

11. The National Job Bank. (1999). United States: B. Adams. pp.660

12. Paulson, L. (2019, January 27). Local history: History of 10 Chapin St., Canandaigua. MPN Now. https://www.mpnnow.com/news/20190127/local-history-history-of-10-chapin-st-canandaigua

13. (1892) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York. Sanborn Map Company, Jan. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn05801_002/

14. (1911) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York. Sanborn Map Company, Jan. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn05801_005/

15. Paulson, L. (2019, May 27). The Labelon era. MPN Now. https://www.mpnnow.com/story/news/local/2019/05/27/the-labelon-era/5053738007/