Web Resources for Willimantic History

Web Sites

Thread 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

Windham Historical Society

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 Timeline - Google
 

Willimantic footbridge, from the Thread City gallery. Tom Beardsley wrote a series of columns on the history of the footbridge.

Footbridge Part 1
Footbridge Part 2
Footbridge Part 3
Footbridge Part 4

Windham Road Bridge, 1996 (HAER No. CT-166)

Windham Road Bridge, 1996 (HAER No. CT-166).

  
Historical Photographs

Thread City Gallery

Windham 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.

Mill No. 2 and Worker Housing, ca. 1900, from Connecticut History Online.

  
Maps and Views

Map 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

Vignette of the Willimantic River from the 1882 View.

  

Books and Other Printed Matter

Bayles, 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

Illustration from A Spool of Thread, 1878.