Hayden Block - Part 3 by Tom Beardsley 3-16-2024

Between 1894 and I897, the Hayden block’s east shop was home to the offices of the Willimantic  Electric Light Company and the Citizen's Gas  Light Company. In 1900, the Hawkins & Barstow Clothing  Company took over Walker's space. In 1902,  Mary Rullinson opened a confectionery and fruit  shop and an ice cream saloon in the building. ln the same year, the Knights of Columbus took over the vacant courtroom and made it their  headquarters.  In 1904, A.P. Benner, a dealer in monumental  marble and granite, opened a store in the building  In 1904 and I905, Willimantic’s Ancient Order of Hibernians met in the courtroom. The  Irish society disbanded in I906, and the courtroom lay unused for several years, but new tenants arrived in 1914, when the Willimantic Board of Trade & Businessmen‘s Association  held its meetings there. The association became the Willimantic Chamber of Commerce in19l7, and held meetings in the Hayden Block until  1943. In 1906, James F. Clune opened a piano and organ showroom, and in 1909 he rented the courtroom and transformed it into a movie  house called the Elite Nickel Moving Theater. This survived for two years. ln1910, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company opened a  grocery store in the building, trading from there  until 1917, when it was taken over by the  Grand Union Tea Company, which stayed until 1926.  From 1925 until the outbreak of World War ll, the building had numerous tenants, such as  the Tunney Corp, variety store (1925-1927),  Woolworth‘s 5, 10 and 25 cent store (1927-  l933), and the HL. Green Co. department store  (1934-1940). The building’s offices were used by a number of President Roosevelt's New Deal agencies. Santo Mattasa operated a news dealership and Irene M Tantro was proprietor of Irene’s Ladies Apparel Shop. In 1954, Louis Ganzler’s shoe shop, The Bootery, was taken over by Franklin Prague’s  Sundial Shoes which traded well into the 1970s. In 1942, the Star Furniture Company opened in the Hayden Block and  by 1948, it operated in two of the ground floor  shops. ln 1950, Star Furniture was taken over by the  Surplus Center. Proprietor Sam Gordon remembered the second floor courtroom as having, “a ceiling 24 feet high and attractive woodwork.” The furniture and fixtures had been removed and Sam used the old courtroom as a toy store. In later years, the ceiling was lowered and more offices were installed. ln 1948, Edward T. Rocheville opened a popular women's clothing store, which traded until 1957. And in 1957, Cecile Deschene opened a snack bar, the  only time the building housed a restaurant of  any description. It closed in 1969, and became  Don & Ron's Snack Bar. The offices in the building were in much demand in the 1950s. Renters were Dr.  Ernest A. Bolt, R.J. Waldron, an architect, Retail Insurance Credit Insurance Investigators, and Valuation Associates Incorporated Appraisals. In 1970, Richard Rita operated an employment agency; the local office of planned parenthood arrived in 1972.  Gordon remained at the Surplus Center until 1987.  (An interesting side note… Willimantic’s new Town Building had a tower but no clock. On March 28, 1896, Whiting Hayden’s son, James Hayden made an offer in the following letter. “Anticipating the convenience to my fellow citizens to be derived from a public town clock centrally located and conspicuously displayed, I am desirous at this time that our new town building be supplied with one of the best makers of town master clocks and to that end will provide the Town with one of the Howard best Tower Clocks. The only condition I desire to impose on the town in accepting the same would be that the Town supply a bell of suitable weight of equal good quality with the clock together with four (4) illuminated dials the same to be illuminated during hours of street lighting on Main Street”. Mr. Hayden’s offer was accepted that night and it was decided that a 2,000 pound bell should be ordered. Records from the Howard Clock Company show that the town ordered a “No. 2 Striker with 4 sectional illuminated dials 6’-4” diameter; black hands & figures”. On June 22, 1896, “the new town clock was formally started by Mrs James E. Hayden...and since then, the hours have been regularly announced by the striking of the remarkably clear and sweet toned bell placed in the tower by vote of the town. It is the first public clock ever started or set up in this city.”)

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