Fuller Brush Factory (1922)

Founded in 1906 by Alfred C. Fuller (whose 1917 house still stands on Prospect Avenue in Hartford), the Fuller Brush Company, famous for its door-to-door salesmen, was located in Hartford until the 1960s. The company built a factory at 3580 Main Street in Hartford in 1922-1923. On March 31, 1923, as it was nearing completion, a 56,000-gallon water tank dropped through 4 concrete floors of the factory’s tower, a disaster in which ten people were killed. The tower was eventually rebuilt. Today, the former factory contains employment and social service agencies. This building is mentioned on p. 180 of my book, A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut.

D.M. Read Company (1925)

Founded in 1857 by D.M. Read, Read’s Department Store in Bridgeport became a retail landmark, evolving into a chain of stores that provided upscale merchandise for over a century. In 1869, the D.M. Read Company moved into a grand Second Empire-style building at the corner of Main Street and Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport. The store moved again in 1925-1926 into a Neoclassical building at the corner of John and Broad Streets. It was designed by Monks and Johnson of Boston. The downtown Bridgeport store was closed in 1981. In the 1990s, the building, now called Read’s Artspace or Sterling Market Lofts, was converted into apartments for artists as live-work spaces.

George W. Jackman House (1892)

At 2403 North Avenue in Bridgeport is a Queen Anne/Shingle style house built in 1892. It was the residence of George W. Jackman, General Manager of the Springfield Manufacturing Company. He was also a Bridgeport Alderman. According to Volume 1 of the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917, edited by George C. Waldo, Jr.):

The Springfield Manufacturing Company, incorporated 1909, succeeded the Springfield Emery Wheel Manufacturing Company, which was established in 1880. Grinding machinery and abrasive wheels are made by this company[.]

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Hartford (1928)

In 1896, Father Joseph Zebris of St. Andrew Church, New Britain organized the Sons of Lithuania Society in Hartford, offering Mass for the city’s Lithuanian immigrants in a rented room on Sheldon Street. 1900, when the mission filed a report with the diocese of Hartford, is officially regarded as the inaugural year of Holy Trinity Catholic Church. In 1903, the church purchased property on Capitol Avenue which included a two-story brick building which was converted into a place of worship. This brick dwelling was moved to the back of the lot in 1913 to make room for construction of a new church. The cornerstone was blessed on October 10, 1915 and a basement chapel was ready for use by Christmas of that year. The remainder of the church was completed in 1927 and was dedicated on March 18, 1928. (more…)