Before we begin a historical look at Valley
Street, let's take a pictorial walk down Valley
Street as seen in 1910. The Rev. Louis Flocken,
pastor of the Methodist Church, took about 125
photos throughout the city and used them in a lecture to demonstrate
"the great many improvements which had been made
in the city during the six years he had been a
resident here".
These are the Rev. Flocken's photos of Valley
Street and some intersections. We've colorized
the photos for this presentation.
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Saint Joseph's School |
Saint Joseph's School |
Children on corner of Jackson and Valley Street.
Note the city's new road grader on the left. |
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The east mill of
Holland Manufacturing |
Photo taken looking north across Valley Street
on Church Street. The Holland Mills are on
either side of Church Street |
West side
of Church Street
at Valley Street.This
is the west corner of Church and Valley streets
in 1910. The building with the sign was the
Willimantic Printing Company at 88 Church St.
The next building was Chaffee Manufacturing. It
produced nylon fishing line and braided silk).
Across Valley Street was the west mill of
Holland Manufacturing |
Valley Street
(looking west from Church St.)The
first building (partially visible) on the left
was the Chaffee Mfg. Company which made braid.
By 1950, Mayor Bergeron’s tin shop was there
along with a liquor store. The next building was
the Windham Silk Mill. By the 50s, it was
William Brand. Then, on the corner of North and
Valley, was the Washburn Block. Beyond the
Washburn block, is a group of buildings housing
the Willimantic Welfare Bureau (later home to
Watson’s Movers), the Women’s Christian
temperance Union, the Park Central Hotel, and
Carpenter’s auto radiator repair. Just about
visible to the left of the tree is the Turner
Silk Mill, later the Trade School. |
Willimantic Lumber and Coal's Church Street
facade. |
The North Street Facade of the Windham Silk
Mill. |
Saint Paul's Episcopal Church
---under construction in 1910. |
The Normal School looking from Windham Street |
The Normal School looking from Valley Street
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Here is a link
to a page with
all of Reverend
Flockens' photos
<LINK> |
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1855
This map shows the original layout of Valley
Street which ran from North Street to just
beyond today's
Bank Street. There were but three dwellings on
the street. |
1869
This 1869 map shows
the growth of Valley Street, which now extended
from Jackson Street to High Street. Courtesy of
Jamie Eves. |
This 1887 insurance map shows the original Saint
Joseph School, a wood frame building on the
corner of Valley and Jackson Street. (On all
insurance maps, yellow designates wood frame,
pink designates a brick building.) The convent
is close to the school. A bit west stands
another building which was the original Saint
Joseph Church and was also being used as part of
Saint Joseph’s School.
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By 1910, The original school had been demolished
and the convent had become a temporary home for
nurses-in-training at the new, brick, Saint
Joseph’s Hospital. A new convent had also been
built. The new, brick Saint Joseph’s School
replaced the old building while the original
Saint Joseph Church and school building had been
“cobbled” together as Saint Mary’s Hall. Along
Wausau Place (which is todays Saint Mary’s
Court) stood the original Saint Mary’s Rectory
as well as several other dwellings.
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The new brick Saint Joseph's Hospital with part
of the wood frame nurses' home visible.
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Post card photos showing the original and the
new Saint Joseph's School.
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Postcard photo of the new Saint Joseph's School
with the old Saint Joseph's Chuch just beyond
it.
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 The old Saint
Mary's School
This
photo was taken from the parish's 1993 family
photo album. The part of the building on the far
right would have been closest to Valley Street.
The Rectory roof is partly visible in the
picture's lower left hand corner. |
 Valley
Street looking west.This
is Valley Street looking west from approximately
the front of Saint Mary’s Church. The Holland
Mills buildings and storage shed are pictured.
Visble in the lower right side of the photo is
the wrought iron fence that is still in
existence in front of Saint Mary’s. Also visible
in the bottom left is the spire of the
Congregational Church.
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Holland Silk Company - Valley Street
The Holland Silk
Company's mills manufactured high quality silk
thread in Willimantic from 1864 until 1937, the
year the company located to Pennsylvania. The
Holland brothers came from neighboring
Mansfield, one of the first towns in the United
States to manufacture silk thread |
 A
group of workers gathered at the Holland Silk
Mill |
 A
group of workers gathered at the Holland Silk
Mill |
Corner of Valley and Church Streets
George Nason’s Lumberyard burned on Feb. 13,
1894. At the time it burned, it was across
Church Street from the original police
headquarters and Town Hall. By 1895, the lot had
been proposed as one of the possible sites for a
new Town Hall. Eventually “the Chase lot” on the
corner of High and Main was chosen. The Nason
lumberyard later became Willimantic Lumber and
Coal. |
In the 1940s, this was Jack Roan’s garage
on the northwest corner of Valley and Church
Streets.
At the time, the garage specialized in tire
repair, road service, lubrication and Motorola
radios. In later years it became Jack Roan’s
appliance store.
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Insurance Map |
Insurance map showing St. Mary's Church and the
Holland Silk Mills. |
Click on photo above to see or download a
complete .pdf version of the 1897 Sanborn
Insurance Map. |
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 This
is the silk mill that was located at the southeast
corner of Valley and North Streets. It was
built in 1882 by Frederick Dwight Chaffee for
the
Morrison Machine
and
Natchaug Silk
Companies.
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Morrison Machine Company & Natchaug
Silk CompanyThe
Morrison Machine Company's factory is the wooden
structure, and was located on Valley Street.
The Natchaug Silk Company's mills, built in
1888, stood on North Street. The Morrisons
manufactured silk spinning machinery, and the
Natchaug Company was famous for its high quality
dress silk. The former company's mills were
taken over by the Windham Silk Company in 1910.
The latter company went into liquidation in
1895, due to a financial scandal. The Brand
Company later used their mills in the 1950s. |
Morrison
Machine Company and
Natchaug Silk Company
The Morrison Machine
Company's factory is the wooden structure, and
was located on Valley Street |
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Morrison Machine Company and
Natchaug Silk CompanyThe Natchaug Silk
Mill on North Street was built in 1881/1882 by
Frederick Dwight Chaffee. The factory was later
taken over by the Windham Silk Company and Brand
Rex. |
Morrison Machine Company and
Natchaug Silk Company |
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North & Valley Streets"The Washburn Block" sat on the southwest corner
of North and Valley. Until the building of the
Town Hall, all Town of Windham public meetings
were held here.
It was, at times, occupied by a funeral parlor
and the Masonic Order’s Temple. Photographer
Hiram Fenn, who took hundreds of
Willimantic photos in the late 1800s and
early 1900s, had a photography and framing
studio there. |
Valley Street -
looking west from Pearl Street -
The building
on the left was built in 1897 as Willimantic’s
second armory. Later it became a dance hall and
then home of Watson’s Movers. The next three
buildings housed McCarthy Brothers Plumbing and
Heating, then the Park Central Hotel, and J.B.
Carpenter Plumbing. The Trade School can be seen
on the far right. |
This is a group of buildings that housed the
Willimantic Welfare Bureau (later home to
Watson’s Movers), the Women’s Christian
temperance Union, the Park Central Hotel, and
Carpenter’s auto radiator repair. Just about
visible to the left of the tree is the Turner
Silk Mill, later the Trade School.
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From the left is the building owned and occuied
by Watson’s Taxi and Watson Movers. The next
building was occupied by the Jehovah’s Witnesses
and the First Spiritualist Society and tenants
living above the two storefronts. The building
on the right was the Park central Hotel. All
these buildings were razed during the
Redevelopment period. |
 140-142 and
146 Valley Street
On the left
is the building that had a double storefront and
was home to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the
First Society of Spiritualists. At one time it
was used as an Armory for the CT National Guard.
It was also used as a social club. On the right
is the Park Central. These two buildings as well
as one on the right of the Park central were
built around 1890 by M. Eugene Lincoln (not the
Lincoln Square Lincoln) who was one of the
city's most prolific builders. Besides these
three, he put up at least ten other buildings in
the city. |
 Park Central Hotel -
146 Valley StreetThe first mention of the Park Central Hotel that
we could find came from a 1903 newspaper story.
A fireman wrenched his back at a fire at the
Hawthorn House and was “confined to his room at
the Park Central Hotel”. In 1913, the hotel was
sold by Mrs. Eliza Smith to Mrs. William Rose .
To the right is the building that held J. B.
Carpenter’s Plumbing Co. and the W.G. Potter Oil
Burner Co. They were built sometime around 1890
and by 1971 they were on the “Redevelopment” hit
list. |
Turner Silk
Mill This building on the corner of Bank and Valley Streets was built
as the Turner Silk Mill and operated from 1888
to1917. After that several businesses were
housed there. Then, from 1928 until 1956 it was
the home of “The Trade School”.
It was
demolished in 1970 |
Turner Silk Mill has
become the
"State Trade School" |
The Latham and Crane Lumberyard which sat just
north of where Bank Street ends at Valley
Street.(The Trade School is in the background)
It was accessed from Spring Street as well.
Latham and Crane also worked as building
contractors. The 1877 buildings were destroyed
in a spectacular fire in 1922. Approximately
fifty homes and three factories were endangered
and burning debris floated as far as a half
mile. |
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Saint Paul's was
organized in 1882 and in 1883 the first St.
Paul's Church building was erected at the
present site. It was a gingerbread style church,
which came in three sections from Central
Village. During the turn of the century many
Syrian people joined the church, and the little
church was bulging at its seams. In 1912 the
present church was built. " |
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The office and shop of the J.C. Boucher Lumberyard and
building/contracting business at 237 Valley St.,
between Walnut and High Streets. J.C. Boucher
was known for custom built homes, remodeling,
alterations and also for cabinet making and
millworking. |
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High and ValleyBeville
PhotoThis is
the intersection of Valley and High with the
steeple of the First Congregational church
prominent in the background. (the steeple blew
down in the 1938 hurricane)
The
steeples of Saint Mary’s Church (modified in
1955) and pre-hurricane Saint Joseph’s
church are to the left. Toward the right, the
smokestack of Turner’s Silk Mill is visible
along with the Fire Department’s bell tower, the
Loomer Opera House and the Hooker Hotel.
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 High
and ValleyLooking
eastBeville
Photo
Julian Beville also climbed the 200 foot high
smokestack at Windham Mfg. Co. to take photos of
Willimantic from the top of the stack. |
High
and ValleyBeville
Photo
Notice that there were still houses on the south side of Valley Street
between High and Windham streets, the rooftops
of which are visible in the photo. |
The District 1
schoolhouse sat on
the corner of Windham and Valley Sts. It was
razed in preparation for the building of what
would be called the Frederick R. Noble School.
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The Normal School
Opened in 1894 |
The rebuilt Normal School
became the
Willimantic Teacher's College |
This was "The Model School" and was built as an
adjunct to the Willimantic Teacher's College. It
replaced the original Model School which was
destroyed by fire.
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Redevelopment officially began at 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday Oct. 9, 1973. It began at Lincoln Square
and proceeded North and East. Here are some
photos from that time. |
The Windham Market Market
- Southwest corner of
Valley and Jackson Streets. It
started out as Borodach's Meat Market in the 1920s and was usually referred to as Borodach's Market.
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 Osso's
Corner
of Jackson Street and
Valley Street Ext.
Prior to Redevelopment, Catholic Charities had
moved into the building but prior to that it was
the confectionary store owned by Joe and Louis
Osso.
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18 Valley Street |
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Valley St.
Looking west from Jackson St. |
Valley St.
Looking west from Jackson St. |
 Saint Mary's
ChurchThis is a view of St. Mary's Church that will
never be seen again. We're looking at the Church
in 1970, between the houses that once stood on
the major parcel. |
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Former silk mill on the southwest corner of
Church and Valley Streets. This part of the
building housed a sheet metal business owned by
Willimantic Mayor Florimond J. Bergeron.
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As Redevelopment progresses, the Park Central
remains standing but the three buildings to its
right have been razed. The Park Central was the
next to fall. |
From Tom Beardsley's 1992 "Then and Now"
series in "The Chronicle" |
From Tom Beardsley's 1992 "Then and Now" series
in "The Chronicle"
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From Tom Beardsley's 1992 "Then and Now"
series in "The Chronicle"
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