This video is about Brown, Thomson & Company, a department store that existed in Hartford Connecticut from 1866 to 1969. I talk about the store’s history with a focus on the buildings the business occupied. I also talk about another store, the Bee Hive, which existed from 1847 until 1894, when it was absorbed by Brown Thomson’s.
This video is about Wise, Smith & Company, a department store in Hartford, Connecticut that existed from 1897 to 1954. I talk about the buildings that came before Wise-Smith and the various structures the company erected over the years. I also talk about the Hartford branch of E. J. Korvette, which occupied the Wise-Smith building from 1957 to 1971.
My latest video is another “walk”, this time around the Old State House. Please read the subtitles for interesting facts and historical information. If you enjoy this type of video please let me know and I can do more (and longer) ones!
The village of Hanks Hill in Mansfield was the home of silk manufacturing company of Hanks Brothers. The original mill, built by Rodney Hanks and his nephew Horace Hanks in 1810 and believed to be the first water powered silk mill in the United States, was purchased by Henry Ford in the 1930s and moved to the Greenfield Village open air museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Another mill building was destroyed by fire in 1882 and replaced by the building at 247 Hanks Hill Road, now much altered to serve as a residence. It is just across the street from the Hanks Reservoir. Nearby, at 233 Hanks Hill Road, is a former boarding house for mill employees, built in the early nineteenth century (or as early as 1789).
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A different sort of video for me. No spoken words and no buildings.
This video is about the various buildings of Sage-Allen department store in Hartford, Connecticut. It first opened in 1889 at the corner of Main and Pratt Streets in a building previously occupied by the older dry goods store of Talcott & Post. In 1898, Sage-Allen erected its own building across the street, right next door to a building opened in 1894 by R. Ballerstein’s millinery store. Major expansions or alterations to Sage-Allen were opened in 1905, 1911, 1917, 1929 and 1967. The Hartford store closed in 1990.
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