Historic Company Town Called 'New Urbanist'

"Kinkora Works opened in 1905, and Charles built a model company town to house the workers. 'It was modeled on Pullman, Chicago, a suburb designed by George Pullman for the George Pullman sleeping car company,' says Mr. Zink, who wrote Spanning the Industrial Age: The John A. Roebling's Sons Company, Trenton, New Jersey, 1848-1974 in 1992 with Dorothy White Hartman.

'But Roebling built a far more elaborate town than he had to,' adds Mr. Zink. The homes were built of brick with slate roofs and chestnut trim in 15 distinct architectural types, and there was a community hall, a library, baseball and football fields and a recreation hall, as well as an inn.

The two- to seven-bedroom houses were allocated for different skill levels of workers. Single men slept in a boarding house, and semi-detached row houses were used for entry-level workers. Foremen and supervisors received more spacious Colonial or Tudor style dwellings.

'This was during the model tenement movement, where social reformers had ideas about how housing could improve peoples' lives," says Mr. Zink. "They believed if you gave outdoor spaces with trees and a park, lives would be improved and employers would benefit from less absenteeism and more productivity.'"