Although it hardly resembles its former self, the two-story building projecting into the left side of the frame is indeed the original Fassett’s Bakery store at 294 North Winooski Avenue seen in the 1932 McAllister photograph. At that time Fassett’s was a small neighborhood bakery that would eventually grow to be a regional bakery giant shipping bread across New England and New York State. Originally the bakery was located in an addition out the back of the Italianate-style building seen on this site in 1932, but the business kept growing.[1] By 1960, Fassett’s had constructed a wing larger than the entire building at #294 to hold their many ovens.[2] The wing began at the rear of #294 and ran perpendicular to it all the way out to Archibald Avenue, enclosing Sterling Upholstery on the corner in a kind of courtyard. In 1964, the Bouyea family from Plattsburg, New York bought Fassett’s and soon thereafter major expansions commenced.[3] By 1966, the bakery had finally swallowed the corner lot[4], knocking down the Italianate-style building that housed the upholstery shop to erect a cinderblock garage for their fleet of delivery trucks.[5] At about this same time, #290, 288 and 284 were knocked down and paved over for Fassett’s new parking lot.[6] Sometime amid all this expansion, the bakery’s original building was renovated almost beyond recognition. The two-story front porch was removed along with all woodwork and original features, and the building’s fenestration was drastically altered. The entire facade was covered with stucco, while the remainder of the building received corrugated metal siding. Stylistic details such as the window lintels and cornice brackets were added, but their exaggerated scale and simplified details make the building look very much like a cartoon of its former self.

The biggest clue that the structure visible today remains the same building as in McAllister’s photograph is in the sanborn insurance maps of 1978, which show the building materials for any given structure. While the remainder of the bakery is listed as cinderblock construction, and it is, the two-story part of the Fassett’s complex that follows the exact same lines as the original building is listed as metal siding over wood construction. If the building had been replaced at some point in the last 50 years, cinderblock construction would have most certainly taken its place, as it was employed in all other construction at the site during that time period. In addition, the Burlington City tax assessor’s records list that part of the bakery complex as being built in 1899. Although 294 North Winooski Avenue has been remuddled beyond all recognition, it is still the original home of Fassett’s Bakery.

In 1980, Fassetts Bakery relocated to a new 50,000 square-foot baking facility built on Shelburne Road in South Burlington leaving 294 North Winooski Avenue vacant.[7] The building housed a distributor for several years before being divided into many commercial units in the late 1980s.[8] Now the building includes tenants such as the Center for Media and Democracy, several non-profit organizations and a video rental store.