Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Check out my latest article on Substack. It’s the story of a shoe store manager who left Hartford (and his wife and family) the day after Christmas, 1917 on a cross-country spending spree with a young woman using embezzled funds.

As a follow-up to my last Substack post, in my latest post I present two Hartford examples of a dramatic aspect of the construction of steel-framed buildings in the early twentieth century: the tossing of red hot rivets across large distances by teams of iron workers.

My fourth article for Substack is about a 15-story office tower that stood on Main Street in Hartford from 1921 until it was demolished in 1974.

The third article for my Hartford Substack is about Gundlach’s jewelry store, which was located at 20 State Street from 1859 until 1927. Above is an 1860s view of buildings on State Street near the corner of Main Street. The white awning on the far right (on the ground floor of the three-story building) reads “Deming & Gundlach.” The building was later raised to four stories. It was torn down in the 1980s to make way for the State House Square development (Picture Source: Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, Accession number 1956.84.135)

The second article for my Substack called “Remembering Old Hartford” is a history of the Hotel Heublein.

I have launched a Substack newsletter where I will share information about Hartford history. The subscription is absolutely free, but there is also a paid subscription for those who want to support me and receive additional content. The Substack is called “Remembering Old Hartford” and my first article is about the city’s lost Daly Theater, which opened in 1914. It replaced an earlier house on the site that was built in 1837.