Johnson Automatics used a variety of locations and contractors for the manufacturing of their firearms.

The major places of production are the following. Marlin has not been included as they only manufactured prototypes not production models.

The foundry was built in 1914 when the Universal Windings plant opened in Cranston.
















The buildings were substantially built from red brick and provided light airy working environments for the workers.


The foundry building in use for manufacturing the Johnson products. Although bearing the Johnson Automatics sign board this was still a Universal building. Mel. Johnson, being a lawyer was very concerned with how customers perceived his company, wanting it to seem like it had a huge manufacturing capacity when in fact he sub-contracted the work to others. The signs were added for the PR photographs.

In this aerial photograph the foundry has a Johnson Automatics sign place upon the roof, however close examination of the original photo source reveals that this sign has been drawn onto the photographic plate! The edge of the Universal Windings sign can be seen extreme left, middle of the photo (the black coloured square).

Universal Windings was still active upon the site up until the mid 1960's when it broke up into separate divisions and left the Cranston area and moved to Massachusetts. The buildings on the complex are all still in existence including the foundry building as used by Johnson Automatics, being used by Ross Brass Co. for making brass pressings. As this is private property visitors are not encouraged to attend, it is also a working factory which can be quite dangerous.


The Johnson Automatics factory as it appears today. This photograph shows the entrance where the three cars (in the black & white photo above) were parked in 1943.



In the past 50 plus years extra doors have been added and windows have been replaced with newer wooden framed types. Even after this it is still reasonably recognizable as the same building.
















Looking down the side of the factory, having moved position slightly from the first photo.


In this shot note how the two chimneys have been removed from the taller building (the chimneys are clearly visible in the B&W photo above), the windows are now much smaller and the railway lines have been removed. During a recent visit to the factory all the pallets and debris has been removed and the site looks a lot better.
















Inside the factory basement. This area was the indoor range and weapons testing area.


Rifles and LMG's were fired through the aperture in the wall into a service tunnel located behind.

The tunnel ran the length of the factory beneath the workshop floor.

A backstop was located at the other end.




Thanks to Walt Liss for the photos of the factory as it appears today.