Today in 1905, an employee using a hot iron to clear fuse debris from a reeling machine touched off a muffled explosion in the main building of the Climax Fuse factory in Avon. Though the blast was barely heard 300 feet away, the sheets of flame it triggered instantly engulfed the factory, suffocating seven…
Tag: the industrial united states
September 1: Connecticut’s Unknown Industrial Genius
The largely unknown man at the center of Connecticut’s 19th century industrial greatness – Elisha King Root – died in Hartford today in 1865. Root’s machine tool genius first revolutionized axe production in Collinsville and then made the Colt Firearms Company a worldwide icon of precision manufacturing. Born in western Massachusetts in 1808, Root…
August 22: A President Makes Transportation History in Hartford
Theodore Roosevelt was no stranger to Connecticut; his mother and second wife were Connecticans and his sister lived in Farmington for most of her adult life. While Roosevelt’s several visits to Connecticut to visit his family and friends often attracted plenty of press, his visit of August 22, 1902 was memorable not for why…
November 18: A Celebrity Murder Trial with Two Surprise Endings
Today in 1842, hours after he had married his beautiful mistress and moments before he was to be hanged for murder, gunmaker Samuel Colt’s brother John took his own life with a six-inch-long Bowie knife in a New York City prison cell. In doing so, he cheated the “sweating, swearing mob” of 400 invited…
February 4: In Wartime, the Colt Arms Factory Is Destroyed By a Suspicious Fire
Just after 8 a.m. on the morning of February 4, 1864, as the Civil War was nearing the end of the third year of the nation’s most violent and divisive conflict, the loud, sharp, incessant tones of a steam whistle pierced the air in Hartford, alerting city residents to danger. As men and women…
March 27: Staffordville Dam Burst Causes Cascading Chaos
During the second half of the 19th century, as more and more mills and factories popped up along the banks of the Willimantic River’s northern branch in eastern Connecticut, a number of factory owners banded together to form the Stafford (or Staffordville) Reservoir Company with the aim of regulating the flow of water that…
March 2: A Great and Deadly Accident Finds a City Unprepared
Around 2:00pm on March 2, 1854, a deafening blast rocked the Dutch Point neighborhood of Hartford following the explosion of a massive steam boiler at the Fales & Gray Car Works factory. The force of the explosion blew out the eight-inch-thick brick walls encasing the factory’s boiler room, causing the roof to cave in…
January 31: A Double Dam Disaster in Danbury
In 1860, residents living in Danbury, Connecticut banded together to build a large, earthen dam to create a reservoir that would provide a sufficient water supply for the town’s steadily increasing population and burgeoning factories. A few years later, they built a second dam about a mile downriver, and the structures became known as…
January 28: The World’s First Commercial Telephone Exchange & Connecticut’s First Transcontinental Phone Call
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. Patent for the first practical telephone design, ushering in one of the most revolutionary devices of the late 19th century. The earliest telephones, however, were extremely limited: they allowed for communication between two receivers, but only if they were directly connected by a single wire. It…
January 10: Legendary Arms Maker Samuel Colt Dies at 47
Today in 1862, Samuel Colt, a man who had endured years of failed business ventures before finding both fame and fortune in Hartford, died suddenly at age 47, one of the richest men in the United States.. In just 15 years, Colt had created a record of innovation in marketing and manufacturing whose impact…
November 19: Bold as Brass, The Silver City Goes International
Today in 1898, in the middle of a sustained series of national economic crises, the International Silver Company, one of Connecticut’s most famous and globally recognized brands, was formally incorporated in Meriden. The central Connecticut city had already established a national reputation as a leading producer of silver and silver-plated goods by the late…
November 18: A Famous-Family Murder Mystery with Two Surprise Endings
Today in 1842, hours after he had married his beautiful mistress and moments before he was to be hanged for murder, gunmaker Samuel Colt’s brother John took his own life with a six-inch-long Bowie knife in a New York City prison cell. His suicide –perhaps assisted by his brother, who sone speculate helped him…