Built in about 1900, the buildings at 34 Tappan served as the local granary as for one purpose: Distribute grain to the North Shore area.

The grain would arrive by train from Boston, and then be offloaded from the rail spur that lines up directly with the building’s bay door on the South side. On the North side of the building, another bay door would load the horse drawn carts housed in the carriage house for disbursement to the surrounding towns. A grain elevator, still preserved on site, was employed in the building to lift the grain for storage to the second level of the building, and push carts were used in the heavily framed building to transfer the bags of grain from one location in the building to another. The original grain elevator and pushcart are still on the property today and we hope to incorporate them into the new residential design for the buildings.

The two buildings on the site today are original to the property, although the larger warehouse was expanded in the late 1940’s. Since the 1900’s, the post and beam structures have been used in one commercial form or another, and starting in the 1950’s they have been used continually as a commercial moving and storage business.