Joseph Mace erected this building in 1885 as a grist mill, but his business and those of his successors, Tilden and Glover, failed. The two story brick building then stood vacant for more than five years before Swift & Company, the Chicago based meat packing concern founded by Gustavus Franklin Swift in his midwestern operation in 1875, took interest in it. Within six years Swift was shipping meat to east coast butchers, and by 1912 the White River Junction branch was one of 400 sites across four continents owned by the corporation. The meat wholesaler received refrigerated car loads of beef quarters weekly and remained an important part of the local business community for more than half a century. In 1986, Catamount Brewery began producing world class ales and lagers here as the first microbrewery in New England to produce bottle beer.