Web Resources for Willimantic History
Web SitesThread City. The site, sponsored by the Willimantic Chronical, provides access to all 250 columns by former Windham Municipal Historian Thomas R. "Tom" Beardsley, Ph.D. Windham Textile & History Museum Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum HABS/HAER Collection. The Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record collection at the Library of Congress has written and photographic documentation online for five Willimantic properties: Jillson House, the stone-arch bridge east of Jackson Street, and three components of the former American Thread Company complex. Search "Willimantic" on the search page. Search the New York Times database for articles about Willimantic, 1851-1980 |
Willimantic footbridge, from the Thread City gallery. Tom Beardsley wrote a series of columns on the history of the footbridge. Footbridge Part 1
Windham Road Bridge, 1996 (HAER No. CT-166). |
Historical PhotographsWindham County Court House and City Hall Willimantic Railroad Station, from the Railroad History Collection, Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut |
Mill No. 2 and Worker Housing, ca. 1900, from Connecticut History Online. |
Maps and ViewsMap of New London and Windham Counties, 1833 Map of Windham County, Connecticut, 1855 Includes a detailed map and business directory of Willimantic at the lower left. Willimantic, Conn. from Blake Mountain, 1882 Aero View of Willimantic, Connecticut, 1909 New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, Valuation Map 54.62/34, 1915 |
Vignette of the Willimantic River from the 1882 View. |
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Books and Other Printed MatterBayles, Richard M. History of Windham County, Connecticut. New York: W. W. Preston, 1889. Gould, E. R. L. The Housing of the Working People. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1895. Larned, Ellen D. History of Windham County. Worcester, MA: Charles Hamilton, Vol. 1, 1876, Vol 2, 1880. Robillard, Ron. Windham and Willimantic. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. " A Spool of Thread," Scribner's Monthly, Vol. 16, No. 5 (September 1878): 697-711. Spalding, J. A. Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut. Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1891. (Search "Willimantic"). |
Illustration from A Spool of Thread, 1878. |
