1 Hard Street
Naugatuck, CT 06770

Naugatuck was settled in 1701 as a farming community in rural western Connecticut. As the Industrial Revolution commenced, Naugatuck was transformed into a hardscrabble mill town like its neighbors in the Naugatuck Valley. Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Company & Downtown Naugatuck (c. 1890) Rubber was the chief manufactured product. The United States Rubber Company (renamed Uniroyal Inc. in 1961) was founded in Naugatuck in 1892 as a consolidation of nine rubber companies, and maintained their corporate headquarters there until the 1980s. Their Footwear Division manufactured Keds sneakers in Naugatuck from 1917 until the 1980s. U.S. Rubber also produced Naugahyde in a Naugatuck factory, but it is no longer produced there. Due to an increase in the price of sulfuric acid, which was needed for the process then used for reclaiming old rubber, the United States Rubber Co. formed the Naugatuck Chemical Company on June 1, 1904, and the company soon was in the forefront of the chemical industry in the United States. Naugatuck Chemical remained a subsidiary of the U.S. Rubber Co. until, under Uniroyal, it gained independence as Uniroyal Chemical Co. They moved their operations to Middlebury, Connecticut, in the 1970s. The Risdon Manufacturing Company, established in Naugatuck around 1910, began by producing safety pins. Local housewives and children were often hired to attach the pins to cardboard for easy sale. Risdon became the manufacturer of total packaging for cosmetics, personal, household and other consumer products and home sewing notions such as common pins, needles, snaps and other accessories. It is now the Crown Risdon Co., headquartered in Watertown, Connecticut. In the 1960 Harold Barber founded H. Barber and Sons in the community. The company builds beach rakes for picking up debris and grooming beaches and claims to be the largest such business in the world.[2] Naugatuck was the home to Peter Paul, the Hershey Foods division that produces Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars, until the Hershey Co. closed the Peter Paul factory in November 2007. The normally peaceful Naugatuck River that flows through Naugatuck overflowed its banks on August 19, 1955.[3] Fed by over 10 inches (250 mm) of rain from Hurricane Diane, the river cut a path of destruction that forever changed the face of Naugatuck. Town history sign found on the Naugatuck Green As American manufacturing declined in the late 20th century, the mills closed and the town fell on largely hard times. With the expansion of suburbs, especially in New Haven and Fairfield County, the town is now largely a bedroom community for the middle class. With this, many of Naugatuck's neighbors are fairly wealthy. Middlebury and Oxford are affluent towns that have higher performing school districts, but the price to live in these suburbs is high. Currently, many new more expensive homes are being built as people from Fairfield County and other areas are looking for more affordable housing and convenient access to major highways. Naugatuck High School (c. 1910). A McKim, Mead, and White design, the building is now Hillside Intermediate School, following erection of a new high school on Rubber Avenue in the late 1950s. The local high school, Naugatuck High School, has a storied football rivalry with the high school in Ansonia that is one of the longest in America. Like the other rival high schools in the Naugatuck Valley, the two teams meet the morning of Thanksgiving Day. The first meeting was in 1900. Ansonia is the long-term winner in the series. Naugatuck High School's mascot is the greyhound, and its colors are garnet and grey. The town of Naugatuck is affectionately referred to as "Naugy" by its residents. The town common features 11 commissions by the renowned New York architecture firm of McKim, Mead & White. Naugatuck is also no stranger when it comes to being in popular media. In 2008, an episode of Food Paradise (Sandwich Paradise) on the Travel Channel highlighted the Nardelli's Grinder Shoppe, its specialty(s) Italian grinder sandwiches ("Meat Combo"). The town has also been used as a filming location for works such as Engine Trouble, released in 2002, and War of the Worlds, filmed at the former Uniroyal plant and released in 2005. (The plant was demolished on February 28, 2008.)