An undated photograph of the Buttonwood Street factory building of Nedrich Shirt Manufacturing Company on Elizabethville, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
A brief history of the Nedrich Company appeared in the Souvenir Bicentennial Book of Elizabethville, published in 2017:
Nedrich Shirt Manufacturing Company was originally located on 32 S. Buttonwood Street and was incorporated February 9, 1958, as the successor to the Dauphin Shirt Manufacturing Company, which was owned by Richard J. Weaver and his children. The incorporators of Nedrich Shirt Manufacturing Company were Ned M. Weaver, Richard S. Weaver, Ruth Cook, and Dorothy Kiehl, children of Richard L. Weaver who died in 1958. The company was a contractor for men’s and ladies’ shirts and sportswear. The material was cut in the Weaver Apparel Building on South Market Street and taken to the shirt factory on Buttonwood Street, where it was made into shirts of many styles. The completed garments were then returned to the apparel building, where each garment was trimmed, pressed, and packaged, and the finished products sent to over 3,000 stores throughout the United States. In 1972, Nedrich renovated and reequipped the entire factory on South Market Street into a highly diversified operation that employed an average of 160 people. Shirt manufacturing in Elizabethville began in April 1905 when W. R. Snyder rented the main building of the old Byerly Wagon Works on Buttonwood Street from J. A. Romberger and began operations on May 8 with twelve employees. in August 1917, Snyder sold his Elizabethville and Berrysburg factories to Rossman-Weaver, Inc. In 1931, the building on the northwest corner of Spring and Buttonwood Streets was purchased and operations of the plant were consolidated with those of the Elizabethville Shirt Factory in the Kerstetter Building at 11 E. Main Street, which William P. Ingle had operated since August 1919, and which was then discontinued. At that time Rossman-Weaver Company made only dress shirts. In 1934, it added a full line of western shirts and made shirts for the military during world War II. In 1952, Dauphin Shirt Company added ladies’ shirts to its line. In the 1960s, Nedrich Shirt Manufacturing Company added ladies’ sportswear and was a major employer in Elizabethville until it closed in 1982.
_____________________________________________________
For information on the availability of the Souvenir Bicentennial Book of Elizabethville, contact Elizabethville Historical Society.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.