Until the mid 1800s, shoes were handmade in small shoe-making shops by cobblers. Since shoes were either made to order or in limited quantities, cobblers had no need for significant storage space or adequate housing for shoes. As innovations in the shoe industry advanced--the invention of the sewing machine in 1846 and automated shoe-making machinery, like Jan Ernst Matzeliger's shoe-lasting machine in 1883--so too did the need for a storage utility...