The former Wallingford Armory, at 121 North Main Street in Wallingford, was built as a state armory in 1920. The castellated structure, designed by Walter P. Crabtree, now serves as part of the Wallingford Police Department headquarters.
Known as Stone Row, the Officers’ Quarters at Fort Trumbull in New London were built around 1830 and housed military officers for over a century and a half. Until 1910, army officers occupied quarters in the building, followed by officers of the Revenue Cutter Service, the Coast Guard and finally the Navy, who converted it to offices in 1995. The building once had small wood dormer windows, but the Coast Guard replaced these with full-length shed dormers along both sides of the building. In 2000, the structure was adapted to serve as the Visitors’ Center for Fort Trumbull State Park.
Architect Charles S. Palmer designed the Torrington Armory, built in November 1910 and opened in February of the following year as a training location for Torrington’s National Guard unit. The Armory, which was used as Torrington High School’s gym from 1926 to 1964, has been operated as a facility for the public by the Torrington Parks and Recreation Department since 1994.
The Ansonia National Guard Armory, at the corner of State and North Cliff Streets, was built between 1919 and 1921. Designed by Major Morris B. Payne, it contained barracks, officers’ quarters, a 75 X 150 foot drill hall and a rifle range. In 2003, the Armory was closed by the state and given to the City of Ansonia. It is now used for various events.
Organized in October 1771, the First Company Governor’s Foot Guard is the oldest military organization in continuous existence in the United States. In 1780, the Foot Guard escorted Washington to his meeting with the Comte de Rochambeau in Hartford. Built in 1888, the Foot Guard Armory, on High Street in Hartford, was designed by architect John C. Mead. The building’s drill hall, advertised in the 1890s as the largest public hall between New York and Boston, was once one of Hartford’s major locations for public entertainment.
The oldest surviving structure at Fort Trumbull in New London is a granite blockhouse, built in 1796. It was built after Congress authorized funds for the fortification of American seaports in 1794. The fortifications in New England were under the direction of a French engineer, Stephen Rochefontaine. Designed with tapering walls to resist exploding shells, the blockhouse (also known as a citadel) housed a powder magazine and soldiers’ living quarters. It was also intended to become its own mini-fort, a final stronghold if the main fort fell to an enemy. Of all the buildings constructed in America as part of the 1794 program, the blockhouse at Fort Trumbull is the only one still standing today.
In 1775, Governor Jonathan Trumbull recommended that a fort be constructed near the mouth of the Thames River to protect the port of New London. The first Fort Trumbull, completed in 1777, was captured by the British during Arnold’s 1781 Raid. The Fort was rebuilt around 1808 as a “second system” fort, a structure that was later replaced by the present fortification, a “third system” fort, constructed between 1839 and 1852. Fort Trumbull is a five-sided, four-bastion coastal defense fort and is unique among American forts because it was built in the Egyptian Revival style, inspired by the Temple of Luxor. During the Civil War, the Fort was an organizational center and the headquarters of Connecticut’s 14th Infantry Regiment. Over the years, Fort Trumbull has also been used as a training facility: it was the site of the the U.S. Revenue Cutter Academy and then the Coast Guard Academy until 1932; the Merchant Marine Officer Training School program from 1939 to 1946; and was used as the Fort Trumbull campus of the University of Connecticut from 1946 to 1950, where it served veterans attending college under the GI Bill. Fort Trumbull next became the Naval Under Water Sound Laboratory. After the Laboratory was closed in the 1990s, the site was redeveloped to become a State Park. Work began in 1999 and in 2001 it was opened to the public for tours.
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