Windsor Locks reflects a broad American story, beginning with Native American seasonal hunters, followed by Puritan farmers drawn to the rich soil of the river meadows, Yankee industrialists, and waves of Irish, Italian, French Canadian, and Polish immigrants who came to find work in the mills. African-Americans took up arms with their fellow citizens to help preserve the nation in the War of Rebellion, Hispanic and Caribbean laborers worked in sweltering tobacco fields, and more recent Middle Eastern, Asian, and South Asian neighbors also made their homes there, all sharing the common goal of claiming their share of the American dream. Ella T. Grasso, eighty-third Governor of Connecticut and a Windsor Locks resident, said, “Bloom where you are planted. That is Windsor Locks which is my strength and life.”