The O'Brien Corporation — the varnish works on Washington Street

1875 or 1878 – documented standing in 1983

The founder: Patrick O'Brien came from Ireland to Salem, New Jersey, in 1845, worked in the finishing department of the Studebaker works at Chicago from 1856, and came to South Bend in 1857, on the National Register nomination for the company's plant. He was a carriage finisher, and his trade problem was time: a carriage finish took six to seven weeks to dry. His answer was a primer that dried fast — he called the company that sold it the O'Brien Electric Priming Company, "electric" in the period sense of quick. The paint and varnish works he founded grew into one of the city's major industries and the region's only major paint manufacturer, and it stayed on its nineteenth-century ground at 2001 West Washington Street, the oldest buildings of 1882, still making the same line of goods when the nomination was written in 1983.

The founding, carried three ways: The record does not fix the founding in one voice, and the three voices are printed as they stand. The Register nomination says that "in 1875 Patrick O'Brien decided to branch out on his own," and the company celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary in 1975, which follows the 1875 date. Howard's county history dates the organization of the O'Brien Varnish Works to 31 May 1878, with a capital of $20,000 and the founder's sons in the offices: Patrick O'Brien president, George L. O'Brien vice-president, William D. O'Brien secretary, Frederick O'Brien treasurer. The industry booklet South Bend Today, which carries the works as its twenty-second entry, says instead that Patrick O'Brien came to South Bend in 1876 and spent his first two years devising the Electric Primer in Studebaker's carriage-finishing department — which would put his arrival nineteen years after the nomination's date and his primer work exactly in the years before Howard's 1878 organization. The dates are not reconciled here; what is common to all three is the man, the trade, and the primer.

The products: The works' first consumer product, a hardwood floor finish, came in 1887, on the nomination. The booklet adds a patented heater for applying the primer hot, and a plant grown to eight acres. The company's lines ran to enamels and varnishes under names the trade knew: Flexico, first marketed as South Bend Enamel, which the nomination dates to 1903; and the Liquid Velvet line, which the booklet dates to its first marketing in 1913. The two accounts name the products in different orders and are printed as they give them. At the nomination in 1983 the works stood as one of the oldest major industries in South Bend still in its nineteenth-century location. The company's course after 1983 is not pinned in the record reached, and no later fate is printed.

Sources:

1. National Register of Historic Places nomination, The O'Brien Corporation plant, 2001 W. Washington St. (NRIS 83003756) — Patrick O'Brien's 1845 arrival in New Jersey, the Studebaker finishing department at Chicago in 1856 and South Bend in 1857, the 1875 decision to branch out, the Electric Priming Company and the six-to-seven-week drying problem, the 1975 centennial, the 1887 floor finish, Flexico in 1903, the oldest buildings of 1882, and the works' standing in 1983 as the region's only major paint manufacturer.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), manufactures chapter, sec. 5 — the O'Brien Varnish Works organized 31 May 1878, capital $20,000, the four O'Brien officers.
3. South Bend Today, "Through South Bend Industries," entry 22 (SJCPL Michiana Memory) — Patrick O'Brien's 1876 arrival, the two years in Studebaker's finishing department, the patented application heater, the eight-acre plant, and Liquid Velvet first marketed in 1913.