Litomyšl had always been at the forefront in the manufacture of shoes. At the beginning of the 20th century, twelve of the seventeen manufacturing companies in the town were making shoes. Lederer & Adler became one of those manufacturers in 1910 and bought land suitable for the construction of a factory for the manufacture of shoes in the close neighbourhood of the railway station. The factory's ambition to become one of the most significant manufacturers in the town was heightened by its original promise to build several workers' houses (something which was however, never carried out).
The design project for the factory premises was undertaken by the Hradec Králové builder František Plesnivý. The two-storey building near the access road featured a flat roof and a fully-glazed facade facing onto the street. Two thirty-metre long workshop halls were allocated for production, and were well illuminated due to the building's aforementioned glazed facade. To the left side of the main building, Plesnivý attached what was originally a ground-floor administrative building whose style matched that of the villas on the opposite side of the railway building (07-518).
Contrary to expectations, the company was not successful. This was primarily due to the fact that in 1912 workers staged massive strikes in protest against unfavourable working conditions (the factory was locally referred to as “the borstal” and a song of the period “kramářská píseň” mentions the goings on inside it). A short respite came during the First World War with a contract for supplying footwear to the military. However, the company was taken to court as a result of the inferior quality of its goods. During the interwar years, the company had to pay off its creditors, and in 1925 the production hall was sold off and subsequently adapted for use by a cooperative - Hospodářské Družstvo.
Today, not only does the building retain a range of authentic construction features from 1911, but it also retains those dating back to the era of the cooperative.
