The Main Street Historic District in Danbury, Connecticut, United States, is the oldest section of that city, at its geographical center. It has long been the city's commercial core and downtown. Its 132 buildings, 97 of which are considered contributing properties, include government buildings, churches, commercial establishments and residences, all in a variety of architectural styles from the late 18th century to the early 20th. It is the only major industrial downtown of its size in Connecticut not to have developed around either port facilities or a water power site.
It was called Town Street when Danbury was first settled in the late 17th century. For over a century afterwards the "long, straggling street" was synonymous with Danbury, to the point that farmers in the area referred to it as Danbury Street. The Revolutionary War in that area of Connecticut began in the future district, where a marker indicates the first shot fired at the British. As the city began growing toward the mid-19th century, its development was shaped by the arrival of the railroads, which helped the city's hatmakers dominate their industry.
In the mid-20th century the area began to decline. Hats became less popular after World War II, causing the hat factories to close. The floods of 1955 took a toll, with some businesses choosing not to rebuild. Other businesses left later for a new shopping mall elsewhere in the city. Main Street was largely spared the demolition that accompanied urban renewal elsewhere in the country, and it was recognized as the city's only historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Its contributing properties, ranging from the 1780s to the 1930s, reflects a diversity of uses and styles with a heavy concentration of the Italianate commercial architecture of the late 19th century.
Today, downtown Danbury is once again thriving due to a variety of factors. Businesses formed a special taxing district to raise money for infrastructure maintenance and improvement, and the city used state grants to build popular attractions near downtown like a rail museum and ice arena. Danbury's population has also increased in the late 20th century as it became a popular exurban enclave for New York metropolitan area commuters, and Latin American immigrants have settled in and established businesses along Main Street despite tensions with the city's mayor.
Geography
The district follows a three-quarter–mile () section of Main Street (state highway CT 53) from 34 and 43 Main (the John Rider House, now the city's historical museum) at the south end to White Street at the north. At both ends there are distinct changes—a shift to more modern construction at the south end and the flood control measures along the Still River at the north—that distinguish the district from adjacent areas. Portions of nine side streets are included, varying from most of the adjacent blocks of Elm, Keeler, West and White streets and Library Place to single properties on Boughton Street and Post Office Place. The entire Wooster Street Cemetery is within the district as well. At the northeast corner, Ives Street is also included to Delay Place and Railroad Street. The geographic center of Danbury is close to 238 Main Street. The terrain slopes slightly from south to north along the Still's flood plain, but appears level.
To the north Main Street continues to be predominantly commercial, all the way to Interstate 84 (also, at that point, US 6/7/202) a mile (1.6 km) north. Large-scale residential development mixes with the commercial development south of the district, to where Route 53 leaves to follow South Street towards Bethel. East downtown continues a few blocks to the railroad tracks and the train station), with a small residential neighborhood intervening between downtown and Western Connecticut State University. Residential neighborhoods are to the west.
The district is a heavily developed urban core with mostly commercial buildings, predominantly two-story structures fronting on Main Street, some mixed use with apartments on the upper stories. Among them are some government buildings such as the post office and courthouse and churches such as St. Peter's, whose spire dominates the city's skyline. Single- and multiple-unit residential properties are generally on the side streets. In addition to the parking lots, there is some open space, most significantly Elmwood Park, in the center of from roughly north of Park Place to south of Center Street. From there to the district's north end it continues as a narrow planted median strip.
Within the district's area are 132 properties, 97 of which are contributing to the district's historic character. One, the John Rider House, currently used as a local historical museum, is also listed on the Register individually. The architectural styles represented run from the Georgian houses contemporary with the Riders near the south end of the district, its oldest area, to Colonial Revival and Modernist buildings near its north end, reflecting the business district's expansion in that direction over the course of that time. There are also several historical monuments considered contributing.
History
For the first century and a half of its existence, Danbury and Main Street were one and the same. The arrival of the railroads in the mid-19th century and the growth of the city's hatmaking industry began to expand it beyond Main's immediate neighborhood, and by the end of the century what had been a small village was a city with Main Street as its civic and commercial core.
Another mode of transportation, the automobile, began having an adverse effect on Main Street in the 20th century, routing traffic away from it and making outlying areas more commercially viable and accessible. Revitalization measures by the city have offset this effect somewhat, as has the area's attractiveness to immigrants from Latin America.
1684–1800: Settlement
Danbury began with Main Street. The first eight families who moved up from Norwalk to start an agricultural community on the frontier in 1684 called it Town Street. Their success led to the subsequent establishment of smaller communities like New Milford, Newtown and Ridgefield on the periphery of the new community. Danbury's location at the junction of the main north–south route up the Housatonic valley and the east–west route coming into Connecticut from New York's Hudson Valley to the west helped it prosper further. For these early settlers, the center of community life was the Congregationalist church they built on what is now the site of the Wooster Street cemetery.
Most of the early buildings were destroyed in a British raid during 1777. During the Revolutionary War Danbury was a supply depot for the Continental Army due to its location. An army hospital was also established, and local artificers manufactured nails, wagons, shoes and harnesses for military use.
Shortly after independence, in 1784, Danbury was designated a half-shire town, essentially sharing county seat functions with Fairfield. The Congregationalist church that had been the village's first center moved north a few blocks to the West Street corner in 1785, spurring some development there as it remained the center of community life. In 1792, the first courthouse and jail were built on the sites occupied by the modern buildings today.
1801–1851: Early industrialization
Postwar rebuilding led to the establishment of the industries that made Danbury prosperous for over a century. Hatmaking had existed there even before the Revolution, but in the decades afterwards the village led the country in the field. By 1800 its hatters were producing 20,000 annually. They established retail outlets in the Southern states, and were followed by local makers of boots, shoes, saddles and horn combs. Some buildings from this period remain, such as the 1790 John Dodd shop now on the Rider House museum property, the oldest extant commercial building in the city.
In 1801 the land that is now Elmwood Park was donated to the village for use as a town common. It would be used as a drilling area for the local militia and the early fairs of the Fairfield County Agricultural Society, which later became Danbury Fair. Today's side streets had existed since the late 18th century, but Danbury during this period was still seen by outsiders as "...built principally upon one street, which for more than a mile exhibits an almost continued range of buildings, consisting of dwelling houses, mercantile stores, hat factories, mechanic shops and churches." Farmers who came into town referred to it as Danbury Street.
In 1822, the state granted borough status to Main Street and the area around it. That allowed it to form fire companies and develop a water supply system. Growth continued, and a branch of the Fairfield County Bank was opened in 1826. Two years later a new jail was built on the same site as the current former jail building. In 1829 the last parcel belonging to the Congregational church, a large lot on the west side of the common, was sold and subdivided to pay a departing minister. Large double houses, such as 101–103 and 105–107 Main, were built on the land in the following decade. A Universalist church was built on the common in 1833. The Fry & Gregory saddle factory, built in 1836 at 68 Main Street, is one of the extant buildings exemplifying commercial activity during this period.
The first local bank, the Savings Bank of Danbury, was established by local businessmen in the home of treasurer George Ives, grandfather of composer Charles Ives, on Main Street. Soon after, downtown would reach its modern extent in 1852 with the coming of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad. The landowners of northern Main Street, also stockholders in the railroad, had its passenger depot built at the present location of the post office, helping to increase the value of their land and businesses. A promised secondary depot at the common was never built, and the northern Main Street landowners also defeated a proposal to expand the common into a "central park". The landowners and businessmen of southern Main Street spent their own money to remake the common into Elmwood Park, planting it with elm trees and a hay crop.
1851–1945: Industrial peak
The railroads brought significant change to downtown. During the 1850s the first multi-story brick commercial blocks were erected downtown, starting with Phineas Crosby's Block at 225–229 Main Street. In 1852 it was followed by the Benedict and Nichols Building at 191–193 Main. Its cofounder David Nichols had already built the borough's first grocery 1838, and later served as a state legislator and state treasurer. Large steam-powered hat factories were built, bringing new workers to Danbury. In addition to internal migrants from the rural towns in the area, they were English, Irish and German immigrants. The combined town and borough population nearly doubled between 1850 and 1860, even though Bethel became a separate town during that time. In 1851 the Irish immigrants bought the Universalist Church on the common for their growing St. Peter's church; moving to a newer structure when it was consecrated in 1876.
As a result, Main Street became more commercial. The hatters were skilled workers who could afford to buy or even build their own homes rather than live in crowded tenements, and found the side streets to the west ideal for this purpose. To the east of Main commercial development continued, with the hat factories concentrated in the north, near the river. Wooster Square, the intersection of Main, Elm and White, became a focal point of northern downtown due to the train station's presence. Lumberyards and frame stores opened along White. In 1856 Isaac Ives, Charles's uncle, opened the street that bears the family name.