The P.G. Nystrom building on East River Street in Orange, Massachusetts, was built sometime between 1820 and 1829 and was used as a store, an office, a blacksmith shop, and a wheelwright's shop as well as for decorative painting and carriage assembly. Phil Nystrom, the building's namesake, learned his blacksmith trade from his father, Andrew, who had purchased the shop in 1904. Phil inherited the shop from his father and crafted a variety of goods including iron gates, fences, wagon wheels, tools, and other metal items for many years.
The building is a tripartite two-story structure in the National Folk style with a front gable. It was built using a unique method of spanning cables from the two exterior walls to create tension and support to the second floor without the use of interior posts. The shop suffered through two floods in 1936 and 1938 and a fire in 1941, but has survived to this day.
Phil passed away in 1977, which ended the building's use as a blacksmith shop. Over the years, the property was used by different owners as a hobby-shop, garage, etc., but much of the original equipment has remained.
Doug and Adele Madsen purchased the building in 1991 from Jim O'Connor to store and work on antique cars. With Doug's passing, Adele asked her son-in-law, Orange businessman Bill Mehr, for help with trying to restore the shop. Bill's recollection of Phil working at his forge and anvil in the 1970s brought on a passion to save the old place and he agreed.
With the help and support of Orange educators, business people, local blacksmiths, museums, and politicians, Bill created the Nystrom's Village Blacksmith Shop, Inc., a non-profit organization working through the Orange Historical Society, to restore the blacksmith shop and educate the public about the important trade and art of blacksmithing.
The original coal and coke forge stills sits in the shop with its firepot, blower, clinker-breaker, leg vise, cone mandril, stake anvil, 155 pound Hay-Budden anvil, swage block, chaulk vise and many hand tools.