The Old Schwamb Mill

(The italicized texts are links.)
The Old Schwamb Mill, has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating mill site in the United States. The site of the mill itself has been used as mill since the 1630s. The mill there today was built in 1861. In 1864 Charles Schwamb and his younger brother opened the mill and specialized in making oval frames for portrait photographs. (The mill still makes frames today, and can in fact they can still be ordered here.) The business was kept in family until 1969, when the impending retirement of the Elmer Schwamb (Charles Schwamb’s great-grandson) results in the Old Schwamb Mill being acquired by The Schwamb Mill Preservation Trust. From then the mill has acted as a living museum, still producing pieces for special clients. (A history of the Mill can found here.) 

The closest thing they have to a mission statement is probably this: “Their gifts, grants, and contributions enabled the four visionary Founding Trustees of the Mill in 1969 to acquire and stabilize the structures and find appropriate adaptive uses for the historic buildings, to keep the Mill alive on the landscape as a unique educational resource”. Which come from their Friends of the Mill page. And to that end the mill is certainly still alive and part of the community.

They don’t have a lot of technology, but that doesn’t mean they are not active. They have an absurdly detailed Facebook page, as well as an under used Twitter. Their website isn’t as well laid out as it could be, either. They may not be getting news stories on the macro-level aside from the occasional article in the Boston Globe.

That being said they are doing a great job of working with the local community. As oppose to much larger papers they appear in thing like Wicked Local Arlington, fairly often. They have events in April, and May all in involved with the local community. This is in addition to semi-weekly tours. In fact just this past Saturday (19^th) they were invited to join the annual EcoFest at Arlington town hall. Last March they hosted a Mosaic Show of local artists for the second year running. All this community involvement must be working to some degree because they received an anonymous $65,000 contribution to their endowment in 2011.