In contrast to the many other Classical Revival buildings nearby in Naugatuck Center, the Naugatuck Main Post Office was constructed with elements of the Spanish Colonial Revival style, most notably a Spanish tile roof. Built in 1916, the Post Office was designed under the supervision of James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect for the Federal Government. It was one of the first post offices to be built under the Public Buildings Act of 1913.
The Dillon Building, at 69-71 Pratt Street in Hartford, is named for Charles Dillon, a Hartford millinery merchant. The building was built in 1899 and designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr. It has elaborate ornamentation on the upper floors, featuring decorative floral panels called Rinceau.
William F. Brooks designed the building of the New Britain Institute library, now the New Britain Public Library, built in 1900-1901 on the corner of High and West Main streets. The New Britain Institute was founded in 1853 to promote a series of lectures and establish a library and reading room. The library occupied various rented quarters, including the Russwin Hotel (now New Britain’s City Hall), until bequests from Dr. Lucius B. Woodruff and Cornelius B. Erwin allowed the current building to be built. The Library building is constructed of yellow brick and has elaborate terra-cotta reliefs. This structure once also housed the New Britain Institute’s art collection, which was moved in 1937 to a house on Lexington Street and is now the New Britain Museum of American Art.
The New Canaan Savings Bank was incorporated in 1859 and it was initially located at the office of Selleck Y. St. John, the Bank’s treasurer. The bank mostly likely next shared quarters with the First National Bank and Trust Company of New Canaan, established in 1865, of which St. John was cashier. The bank moved to its own building in 1929, which is now a branch of Chase Bank.
Built in 1909-1914, the New Haven County Courthouse, facing New Haven Green, is an impressive Neo-Classical building. Designed by New Haven architects William Allen and Richard Williams, the courthouse was modeled on St. George’s Hall in Liverpool and has statuary outside by J. Massey Rhind. Today, the building serves as a state circuit court.
The Library Journal, Vol. 31, No. 10 (October 1906), reported that:
The library recently built at a cost of $4000 by Mr. H. W. Sadd, of Wapping, Ct., as a memorial to the Sadd family, one of the first to settle in “Wapping parish,” a part of the town of South Windsor, was dedicated on Sept. 19. […] The library is built of blocks of cement, made in the cellar from sand dug from a hillside near by, is well lighted and spacious, heated by a furnace and well equipped for the needs of the neighborhood for years to come. The town of South Windsor voted in 1898 to establish and maintain a public library, which was kept in the basement of the Baptist church until lately, when it was moved to a room in the large new school-house. The Wapping Library is a very flourishing and successful branch, receiving books from the main library, which are changed every few months. A Chautauqua circle, which has existed for a long time, has been a most valuable and stimulating influence in creating a desire for a library.
In the 1960s, the Wapping Library collection was moved from the Sadd Memorial Library building to a shopping center storefront and consolidated with books from the Wood Memorial Library. These were moved in 1979 to the current South Windsor Public Library. The old Wapping library building now houses offices.
One of the most important buildings designed by McKim, Mead & White in Naugatuck is the High School on Hillside Avenue, constructed in 1905. Naugatuck industrialist and philanthropist John H. Whittemore wanted the school to have a prominent position on a hill overlooking Naugatuck Green and the many other structures that he had commissioned the firm to design. To adapt to the sloping site, the firm created a building in which each of its three floors has an entrance at ground level and each side is designed with its own distinct appearance. Based on Greek temples, the school is constructed in pink granite and pressed buff brick. A new High School was built on Rubber Avenue in 1959 and, although the original school’s interior was damaged by fire in the 1960s, it was painstakingly restored to become a junior high school, now called Hillside Middle School.
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