Last week, we paused our 1880s tour at the Holland Mills. Moving to the south side of  Valley Street, the Kingsley Lumber and Coal yard occupied the block between Temple and Church Streets. George K. Nason bought the lumberyard around 1892 and added several buildings. There was a devastating fire there in February, 1894. The fire led to  accusations that the police were lax in performing their duties and in notifying the fire department. But a thorough investigation concluded that the alarm was turned in almost immediately after the fire was spotted and that within six minutes, the fire department was on the scene. Nason died in 1906 and the business was bought by three men who renamed it “The Willimantic Lumber and Coal Co.”. On the southwest corner of Church and Valley Streets stood the Chaffee Silk Mill. It had been built in 1870 by James MacFarlane as a silk mill under the name Paisley Silk and Thread Company. Orwell Chaffee bought it in 1874 and ran it until his death in 1887 at which time his son Joseph Dwight Chaffee took over. He expanded the company and later, built a new brick mill on North Street as part of his new Windham Silk Company but the Church Street building continued manufacturing until 1930. Next on Valley Street was the wood framed Morrison Machine Company. It was built in 1874 by Walter and Arthur Morrison to repair and manufacture silk thread spinning machinery. The company went out of business in 1894 and the building was torn down in 1911 and replaced by the Windham Silk Company with a large brick structure which was attached to the company’s North Street mill. On the southwest corner of North and Valley Streets was a building known as The Washburn Block. Over the years it housed a carriage repository, an undertaker’s business, rented furnished rooms, and a third floor meeting hall where local voluntary associations met, and dances and concerts were held. Until the present Town Hall was built, almost all of the Town of Windham’s public meetings were held there and it was the site of many important votes and decisions in Willimantic’s history. Until the late 1850s, the south side of Valley Street, from North to Walnut Streets and known as Johnson’s Lot, was actually a meadow at that time, hence the future “Meadow Street” name. It had been talked about as being a good area for a park but it was sold in 1863 for $1,500. Then industry moved in. Between 1890 and 1895, the Charles Boss Lumberyard was built along Meadow Street from North almost to Bank Street. Soon after the Washburn Block was built, other brick structures were erected along Valley Street’s south side. Next after the Washburn Block were three brick buildings erected by Melvin Eugene Lincoln who, for a time, was Willimantic’s postmaster. The first, was erected in 1897 on a lot just opposite Pearl Street which had been, for a short time, the site of the Natchaug Silk Company’s dye house. This building was used by the Young Men’s Athletic Club and was leased by the State Military Department as an armory. The military quarters that would occupied the entire second floor. The state had leased the building for only one night a week and so the main area of the armory, used as a drill room, left Mister Lincoln, “at liberty to lease it for socials, fairs and dancing parties”. The Armory section became home to Willimantic’s National Guard Company “E” , third regiment, which  had been organized in 1891 as part of the Connecticut National Guard. In 1904, the state leased the entire building as an armory. In 1913, Company “E” moved to the new armory on Pleasant Street and the Windham Athletic Club (soon to be known as the Thread City A.C.) leased the building as a boxing venue and began scheduling matches there. In 1923, the building was taken over by Pierre Laramee and Albert Piche who opened a dance hall called “Al-Pierre Tabarin”. The Courant said, ”It is one of the handsomest dance halls in the city”. It soon became the venue as well for  meetings, boxing matches and a host of other public functions. We’ll finish our Valley Street walk next week.

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