{"nrhp_refnum":"04001138","name":"Bona Allen Shoe and Horse Collar Factory","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"554 W. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Buford","county":"Gwinnett County","state":"GA","lat":34.114149859000065,"lon":-84.01178739199997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2005-01-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A complex of three early 20th-century brick industrial buildings (shoe factory, horse collar factory and office) at 554 West Main Street in Buford, Gwinnett County, Georgia, built c.1905 and 1919 for Bona Allen's leather goods business.","why_significant":"It represents Georgia's leather goods industry during the New South era, when leather production was Buford's leading industry from the 1870s to the end of World War II. The buildings also exemplify slow-burn industrial construction typical of Georgia and the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.","narrative":"Three brick buildings at the west end of downtown Buford, Georgia, make up the former Bona Allen shoe and horse collar factory. The two-story horse collar factory and the one-story office date to about 1905, and the three-story shoe factory was added in 1919. Their slow-burn construction used thick masonry walls, large windows, open floors and heavy timber posts. Bona Allen's company became one of the world's largest horse collar makers by 1920, and leather goods drove Buford's economy from the 1870s until World War II. The Allen family owned a tannery, a saddle and harness factory and this factory, and the workforce reached 2,200 in 1932. The factory closed in 1945 after briefly repairing military shoes for the Army. After decades of other industrial uses and a vacancy from about 1990, the complex was rehabilitated into an antiques market, with a new pavilion and two 1960s warehouses counted as noncontributing additions.","period_of_significance":"c.1905-1945","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Other: early 20th-century industrial building","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Rehabilitated and reopened in January 2002 as the Historic Buford Antiques Market, after standing vacant from c.1990 until rehabilitation began in 1997.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:42.765358-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/04001138.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001138/ca9cf7b261-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001138/ca9cf7b261-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Rheave","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bona_Allen.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Rheave</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bona_Allen.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93208503","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_Allen_Shoe_and_Horse_Collar_Factory","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85748157"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/gwinnett-county/bona-allen-shoe-and-horse-collar-factory-04001138/"}