Citizens & Manufacturers Bank (1922)

Henry Bacon, architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., designed the bank building at 18 Leavenworth Street in Waterbury. It was constructed in 1922 as the Citizens & Manufacturers Bank, which was formed from the merging of two banks: the Citizens’ Bank, which was established in 1853 and became a national bank in 1865, and the Manufacturers’ National Bank, established in 1880. The bank later merged again in 1959 to form the Colonial Bank and Trust Company. The structure is now part of the bank building at 81 West Main Street, which today is a branch of Sovereign Bank.

Naugatuck Railroad Station (1910)

The railroad came to Naugatuck in 1849 and by the turn-of-the-century the lines through town were owned by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. When the time came to design a new and larger railway station, John H. Whittemore, Naugatuck’s great manufacturer and philanthropist, who had done so much to shape the architecture of the town center according to his vision of a “City Beautiful,” offered to help pay for its construction if he could select the building’s architect. Whittemore, who was also director of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, commissioned Henry Bacon to design the station, which was constructed between 1908 and 1910. The style of the building has been described as Spanish Colonial Revival, but also as Italian Villa style. Although trains still stop at a newer station nearby, the old station closed in the mid-1960s. Used for a time as a newspaper plant by the Naugatuck Daily News, the building has more recently been restored and converted into a museum by the Naugatuck Historical Society.

Eclectic Society (1907)

The Eclectic Society was established as a fraternity at Wesleyan University in Middletown in 1837, later adopting the Greek letters Phi Nu Theta. The Society‘s first permanent house, which did not have residential accommodations, was built 1882. In 1906, the Society hired architect Henry Bacon to design a Doric Greek revival structure at 200 High Street. Bacon had previously worked for the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White and would go on to design the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and to make preliminary sketches for Wesleyan’s Olin library. Completed in 1907, the Eclectic building is seen as a precursor to the Lincoln Memorial, both having a Doric design but lacking the typical accompanying pediment. In 1970, there was a split between undergraduate and alumni members: ties were severed and the alumni organization, the Socratic Literary Society, incorporated a century before, was dissolved. The undergraduates abandoned the use of Greek letters, elected women to membership and sold the house to the University.

Olin Memorial Library (1928)

Rich Hall, dedicated in 1868, served as Wesleyan University‘s library until Olin Memorial Library was built in 1928. Henry Bacon, who was serving as Wesleyan’s advisory architect, made preliminary sketches for the new library in 1923, less than a year after the dedication of his most famous building, the Lincoln Memorial. Bacon died in 1924 and his ideas were passed on to the firm of McKim, Mead & White. The Library was built in 1925-1927 and dedicated in 1928. The following year, the street just south of Olin Library was moved further south to make room for a large front lawn. In anticipation of the need for future expansion of the Library, the north facade of the building, facing Andrus Field, was left unadorned and had a wall that could be easily removed. The anticipated rear expansion of the library stack area occurred in 1938. Another expansion was constructed in 1983-1986, with a modern addition cleverly designed by the firm of Perry, Dean, Rogers & Partners of Boston to wrap around and enclose the earlier expansion of 1938.