South End: The Early Factory District
The flat river plains of the Naugatuck and Mad Rivers supported mills and later factories, including some of the city’s largest: Scovill, Benedict and Burnham (later American Brass), Waterbury Buckle, Waterbury Clock, Waterbury Button, among many others. The heaviest concentration of 19th century transportation routes, including the rail lines, depots and warehouses followed these patterns in the south end, and state highways, Routes 8 and 63, took heavy commercial traffic south to the national markets through this neighborhood.
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South and east of the river plains, the high rocky hills were gradually developed for housing for the workers employed in the ever expanding mills. Before the Civil War, only the blocks near the factories were occupied, with factory owners and Irish workers living in single and two-family houses on Liberty, Clay, Mill, Union and Baldwin Streets. Below Baldwin Street, the rural fields were known as “Horse Pasture District” and were outside the borough limits.
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As the mills expanded after the Civil War, real estate developers subdivided the empty lands along Dublin Street (later Hamilton Avenue) and as far south as Lounsbury St. The blocks closer to town were provided with city water, but no sewers. The population increased to more than 20,000 people living in the south end by 1930, many of them walking to work. Triple decker housing, multi-family apartment “blocks” and rooming houses increased population density, while contributing to close-knit neighborhoods within the South End.
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