The plant was quickly rebuilt, however, the firm never recovered from the financial burden of rebuilding the factory. Tragedy struck, however, on February 4, 1900, when a divesting fire destroyed the company’s Franklin Street plant, leaving the entire workforce unemployed. The workforce of 25 to 30 hands was increased to 500 during the 1880s, and 600 by 1900, thus making it one of the city’s largest employers.
In 1876, the company acquired a plant at the intersection of Franklin Street and Willow Street from the Union Manufacturing Company, which allowed the firm to expand production. Hopkins and Allen produced various lines of pistols, rifles, and shotguns, and originally operated in the Falls section of Norwich.
The city of Norwich had an established gun-making industry during the middle of the 19th century and the Hopkins and Allen Fire Arms Company appears to have been formed as a result of the consolidation of two existing firms, the Bacon Manufacturing Company and the Continental Arms Company. The Hopkins and Allen Fire Arms Company was organized on June 15, 1868, with $6,000 in capital. Although the company continued to manufacture firearms, it never financially recovered and went bankrupt in 1916 with Marlin-Rockwell purchasing its machinery, inventory and designs in 1917. In August of the same year it was awarded a contract to build around 140,000 Mauser Model 1889 rifles and 10,000 carbines for the Belgian Army, but it turned out that they underestimated the cost of production during a European war and underbid the price (the first rifles were only completed in September 1916 and only arrived to Belgium in 1918). The company started tooling up in 1915 for producing 400,000 SMLEs, but the British gave no money down and the end-of-the-year deadline wasn't plausible to meet, so it ended up in a difficult situation already then. In 1902, the company acquired Forehand Arms Company, for whom it had been making revolvers under contract. The factory was rebuilt in 1901 and Hopkins & Allen would go on to produce 40,000 firearms a year.
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