Windham, founded in 1692, became the seat of the new county organized by Connecticut’s General Court in May 1726 and by the mid-eighteenth century had developed into a thriving legal and mercantile community. In 1754, after Colonel Eliphalet Dyer raised a local regiment for the French and Indian War, residents left behind feared attack when unearthly screams rang out on a hot June night, prompting some villagers to fire muskets into the darkness, some to pray, and others to hide, until dawn revealed hundreds of dead and dying bullfrogs in a dried-up millpond two miles east of the village center, where they had fought over scarce moisture in drought conditions; this event became known as the “Battle of the Frogs.” Between 1822 and 1857, five major cotton mills were built along the Willimantic River, and in 1833 several small mill communities joined to form the industrial borough of Willimantic. Willimantic Linen, operating from 1854 to 1898, and its successor, American Cotton Thread, operating from 1898 to 1985, produced high-quality cotton thread and helped make Willimantic known worldwide as Thread City, while major silk manufacturers also operated there after the Civil War. In 1857 the Willimantic Linen Company built a large cotton mill and a bridge of gneiss stone from the riverbed, and after decades of contested bridge proposals, the Willimantic footbridge emerged as a 1906 compromise between supporters and opponents of a new highway bridge; funding for the present bridge was first sought in 1986, and groundbreaking took place on April 6, 1999.

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

Willimantic, Connecticut · USA