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Disclaimer: Content for these properties was compiled in 2014-2017 from a variety of sources and is subject to change. Updates are occasionally made under Property Information, however the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation (dba Preservation Connecticut) makes no representation or warranty that the information is complete or up-to-date.

Complex Name (Common)
Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.
Complex Name (Historic)
  • Colt's Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.
  • Coltsville
Address or Location
11, 15, 21, 55, 75 Van Dyke Avenue, Hartford
County
Hartford
Historic Designation
Associated Mill Community
What can you do at this mill?
Historic Information

Companies Associated w/Complex

  • Colt's Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.
  • Colt's Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.

Use (Historic)

Largest Documented Workforce

n/a

Historic Narrative

Manufacturers of Fire arms/electric appliances/Bakelite/Washing machines Samuel Colt and his armory claim a place of central importance in the nation's history. His revolver has been one of the most influential pieces of hardware in American experience, first as a tactical advantage in mounted warfare on the western plains, then as a preferred sidearm for the military, for law enforcement officers and for lawbreakers. Today the Colt revolver is a primary icon of our frontier mythology. Furthermore, Colt's manufacturing processes constitute a crucial episode in the development of metalworking technology. The work begun at Colt's in the 1850s under superintendent E. K. Root drew from prior developments in production of textile machinery, firearms and consumer hardware to create a synthesis of technique that provided the basis for metalworking innovations into the 20th century. One measure of the profound influence exerted by veterans of Colt's Armory on American metalworking is the list of men who trained or worked there and who went on to found their own machine-tool building companies: Francis Pratt, Amos Whitney, Christopher Spencer, Charles Billings, E. P. Bullard, among others. The remains of the plant illustrate the scope of Colt's vision, revealing his successful attempt to transplant the plan of the textile mill village to the urban environment. The works stand south of Hartford's center, on former swampland reclaimed by Colt with the building of a 2-mile-long dike along the Connecticut River. Portions of the dike probably survive beneath Interstate 91, east of the works; willow trees helped to retain the earthen dike, and a line of several of these can be seen west of the 1-91 Airport Rd. exit (southbound). Most of the extant industrial complex consists of [factories] from World War I, an origin which focuses attention on the crucial importance of violence 'and war in the development of the firm. Colt's armory supplied arms to both sides in such conflicts as the Crimean and American Civil Wars, and sold guns to subversives as well as to governments, numbering Irish Fenians and radical abolitionists among its customers. Hartford's social elite disapproved of Samuel Colt's personal peccadilloes and his flamboyant disregard to Yankee reserve. But this very moralistic Hartford society, which supported temperance, abolition, Sabbath observance and missionary work, did not criticize Colt's firm for its indiscriminate sale of arms to belligerents or its unquestioning complicity with violence. Another celebrated Hartfordite, Mark Twain, hinted at this blind spot of Yankee moralism in the first sentence of a paragraph in which he described Colt's armory for a California newspaper: 'They have the broadest, straightest streets in Hartford that ever led a sinner to destruction.' (As cited in The Twainian.) (Roth excerpt)

Architectural Information

Number of Existing Buildings

n/a

Dates of Construction

1865, c. 1919-1922

Architect

H. A. G. Pomeroy

Builder

n/a

Building Type

n/a

Architectural Description

The earliest portions of the plant date from 1865, when it was rebuilt as a facsimile of the original structure of 1855, which had burned. The elI-shaped plan of the works, credited to Colt and Root with architect (and Colt nephew) H. A. G. Pomeroy, resembled Amos D. Lockwood's 1854 design for Wauregan Mills, with two long, parallel factories connected by a central, perpendicular section. Unlike Lockwood's textile mill, which had wheelpits for water power beneath the central section, the Colt works was powered by six Porter-Allen vertical steam engines. These prime movers were no less integrated with the entire facility than were the wheelpits of the textile mill: in a literal merger of structure and power, the steam-engine cylinders doubled as load-bearing columns. Only one of the parallel factories survives: 3 1/2-story with gable roof, brick walls and brownstone trim. Five pedimented cross-gable bays adorn the roof. Above the central crossing bay rises a blue, onion-shaped dome, the Hartford skyline's most distinctive feature. Smaller wings extended from the central portion of the plant, but only one of these still stands: the high one-story building, with gable roof and random-coursed brownstone walls, probably held forging or heat-treating operations. Most of the extant industrial complex consists of 4-story and 5-story reinforced concrete factories with flat or monitor roofs [which date from World War I]. (Roth)

Exterior Material(s)

Structural System(s)

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Roof Form

Roof Material

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Power Source

Condition

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Condition Notes

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Property Information

Specific Location

Also includes 100 Huyshope Ave
294/572/76
Colt Gateway LLC, 140 Huyshope Ave Ste 200, Hartford, 06106
http://assessor1.hartford.gov/Summary.asp?AccountNumber=22861
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, 1976.

Adjacent To

n/a

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Parcel ID / Assessor Record Link

  • 312/573/2 (for record, use link and type in address or parcel number) / Link →
  • 294/572/79 (for record, use link and type in address or parcel number) / Link →
  • 294/572/75 (for record, use link and type in address or parcel number) / Link →
  • 294/572/81 (for record, use link and type in address or parcel number) / Link →

Acreage

14.825

Use (Present)

  • Mixed-Use
  • Other: As of 2021, Colt Gateway offers 197 commercial (60%) and residential (40%) units across three buildings, with 28 apartments at 15 Van Dyke Ave added 2021. CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts High School
  • Residential
Sources

Form Completed By

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Date

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Bibliography

  1. Roth, Matthew, et al, Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites (Washington DC: SIA, 1981).
  2. Coltsville Historic District National Historic Landmark. 1988 (expanded from single building of Armsmear, 1966).
  3. Clouette, Bruce, and Carole Anstress Paine. 1976. Colt Industrial District National Register Nomination No. 76001987. National Park Service.
  4. Colt Fire Arms Company. Historic American Engineering Record (HAER).
Representative View(s)Click on image to view full file


Photographer

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Photography Date

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