Installment No. 15 in a multimedia series running through the end of August that aims to define Auburn as a community through the publication of 35 different objects. View a gallery of all the objects presented at .
With an estimated 3,400 local jobs in the sector, manufacturing is a vital component of the Auburn-area economy, but as with many communities in the Northeast, the size of the city's industrial base has diminished greatly over the past several decades. One vivid symbol of that change is the former Dunn and McCarthy shoe factory site at 41-55 Washington St. With employment of some 1,700 people in its peak years, Dunn and McCarthy had an impact on just about every family in the city. It was also the site of one of the city's most spectacular fires, when the block-long building burned down in December 1993. Since the fire, the site has been vacant, although economic development leaders continue to hope for its future.聽
