Mallet’s Oak Street Village

Mallet’s Oak Street Village. . , In the 1880s, the shoe factory, quarry and - stone works, grist mill, and other enterprises established by businessman E.B. Mallet created many job opportunities in Freeport. However the subsequent growth in the workforce led to a scarcity of worker housing., To address his employees' need for housing and to help attract and maintain a stable supply of labor, Mallet initiated a program of building employee residences. He attacked the project with the same energy he had brought to all commercial ventures., In 1886 and 1887, he built a series of homes near his various businesses. The employee housing. described at the time as "six pretty cottages and three double tenement houses, which are rented to men to whom his works give employment" extended along Oak Street (now Depot Street) from the front of the Mallet Office Building to the intersection with West Street. He built similar employee housing on Dennison, West, and Cottage Streets adjacent to his businesses., [ Left Inset: ] , Five of these single "pretty cottages" still stand here on Depos Street. Freeport Community Services owns three of them, and they are incorporated into their main building. Other houses originally built in the neighborhood for Mallet employees continue to be single family homes, though no Mallet business remains to employ the occupants., [ Right Inset: ] , The Portland architectural firm Francis H. Fassett and Frederick A. Thompson designed Mallet's employee housing. Fassett also designed the Mallet Office Building and Freeports first High School., [ Portrait: ] Edmund Buxton Mallet, Jr. ,