The O'Brien Corporation After 1983

1948 – c. 2003 and the open end, at 800 West Washington Avenue

The Business Gaps pass found the O'Brien Varnish Company missing from Businesses entire and wrote its record from 1882 to the National Register nomination of 1983 — the region's only major paint manufacturer still standing on its founding ground. This addendum carries the corporation forward from where that record stopped. The company had taken its modern name in 1948, becoming the O'Brien Corporation. In 1967 it combined with the W. P. Fuller Company of the West Coast, and the Fuller-O'Brien Corporation came into being — the South Bend paint house inside a national paint combination, its marks and lines carried under the Fuller-O'Brien name.

Uniroyal on West Washington: The ground itself kept the trade. Uniroyal's adhesives and sealants business bought part of the Fuller-O'Brien company and operated on West Washington Avenue, and photographs of about 2003 show the successor in place: "Uniroyal Sealants calls the former O'Brien Varnish Company home" — the 1882 plant still making coatings products, under its third corporate century's third name. There the reachable record ends. The final course of paint making on the site, and everything after about 2003, is not carried in the sources and stands open; what is documented is that the works outlived its 1983 nomination by at least two decades, in the same trade, on the same ground.

Sources:

1. Paint and coatings industry histories (Paints & Coatings Industry / paint history compilations) — the O'Brien Varnish Company's 1948 reorganization as the O'Brien Corporation; "in 1967, the Fuller-O'Brien Corporation came into being" from the Fuller combination; the trademark owner history showing the successor's course.
2. Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society, company history pages — Uniroyal Adhesives and Sealants bought part of the Fuller-O'Brien company and operated on W. Washington Avenue; the plant photograph, c. 2003.
3. Monon Society, McCarter photograph captions — "Right: Same location, circa 2003. Uniroyal Sealants calls the former O'Brien Varnish Company home."
4. The Business Gaps record of this build — the company's founding course, 1882–1983, and its National Register nomination; cross-referenced, not retold.