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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)
Stanley P. Rockwell Co.
Complex Name (Historic)
  • Stanley P. Rockwell Co.
Address or Location
296 Homestead Avenue, Hartford
County
Hartford
Historic Designation
Associated Mill Community
n/a
Historic Information

Companies Associated w/Complex

  • Stanley P. Rockwell Co. 1929-ca. 2010

Use (Historic)

Largest Documented Workforce

32 (1974).

Historic Narrative

NR NOMINATION AT NPS FOR APPROVAL 9/2021 The Stanley P. Rockwell Co. was initially established as the New England Heat-Treating Service Co. by New Britain, Connecticut native, Stanley P. Rockwell in 1923. A talented metallurgist, Rockwell’s resume includes a litany of prominent metalworking firms. After graduating from Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School in 1907, Rockwell found work as a metallurgist at the General Electric Co.’s plant at Lynn, Massachusetts. He then went on to the Weeks and Hoffman Co. of Syracuse, New York, before leaving this firm in 1912 to take a job as a metallurgist at the New Departure Manufacturing Co. of Bristol, Connecticut. In 1913, Rockwell was transferred to New Departure’s recently acquired West Hartford, Connecticut plant, where he was assigned with the responsibility of getting production there under way. Rockwell returned to work at New Departure’s Bristol factory in 1916, yet resigned from the firm shortly thereafter. He subsequently took a job on the metallurgical sales force of the E.F. Houghton Co. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he remained until serving as an ordnance inspector for the U.S. Army during World War I. After the war, Rockwell took a job at the Weeks and Hoffman Co. of Syracuse, New York, where he was employed until establishing his own metal engraving shop in Hartford in 1921. In 1923, Rockwell established the New England Heat-Treating Service Co., which occupied a small shop on High Street in Hartford. In 1925, the business was reorganized as the Stanley P. Rockwell Co. The firm met with immediate success by addressing a local need for heat treating services available to manufacturing plants that were too small to maintain their own heat treating departments. In the meantime, however, throughout the 1910s and early 1920s Rockwell had been developing a groundbreaking device used to test the hardness of metal. This was initially done in conjunction with Hugh M. Rockwell (unrelated), also an employee at New Departure, with whom Stanley Rockwell filed an early patent in 1914. In 1919 and 1921 Stanley Rockwell made several improvements to his hardness tester and in 1921 he partnered with Charles H. Wilson of the Wilson-Maulen Co. of New York to design a mass-producible machine. This device, eventually known as the Rockwell Hardness Tester, worked by driving an indenter into a material and then measuring the depth of penetration based on an established hardness scale. The latter, known as the Rockwell scale, would become an industry standard and eventually led the American Society for Metals to honor Rockwell with its prestigious Saveur Award. Although the Rockwell Hardness Tester was manufactured in New York, rather than Hartford, the success of Rockwell’s heat treating business soon necessitated the construction of a new and larger plant. This was built on Homestead Avenue in 1929 and at the time of its completion it was noted as being of the most modern design. The facility contained space for heat treating operations, metallurgical experimentation, and the production of another of Rockwell’s revolutionary designs, the Dilameter, which was a device that applied precise measurement (rather than a determination based on the operator’s experience and judgment) to the process of heat treating metals. Rockwell’s workforce included a staff of experienced metal workers, metallurgists, and scientists, which numbered upwards of two dozen employees during the 1930s. In 1940, Rockwell was tragically killed by an explosion on his motor yacht while anchored in the Connecticut River off of Middletown, Connecticut. Despite the loss of its founder, the firm continued to operate and was acquired by the Etherington Cos., an investment company based in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1974, however, the operations and title of the Rockwell Co. were retained. At the time, the Rockwell Co. employed 32 hands and posted roughly $1 million in sales per year. The Stanley P. Rockwell Co. remained in operation until ca. 2010.

Architectural Information

Number of Existing Buildings

Roughly five (5) primary adjoining primary blocks.

Dates of Construction

1929, ca. 1940, ca. 1970.

Architect

n/a

Builder

n/a

Building Type

Architectural Description

The former Stanley P. Rockwell Company facility is comprised of five primary adjoining blocks located on the north side of Homestead Avenue, roughly 300’ west of Homestead Avenue’s intersection with Woodland Street. The oldest portion of the plant was built in 1929 and is easily identified by evaluating its façade (south elevation). This is comprised of the nine-bay manufacturing block at the center of the plant, and the three-bay office block to the west. The manufacturing building measures roughly 78’ x 71’ overall and stands one-and-a-half-story tall. It is of brick pier construction and has a concrete foundation, red brick walls, large corbelled window bays with concrete sills and multi-pane metal windows, a corbelled cornice, and tile coping. Tripartite windows are located in the gable ends of the building, these allowing additional light into the plant via the clerestory monitors. A stepped brick parapet traces the outline of the paired front-facing gable roofs and the two 6’-tall clerestory monitors run the full depth of the original block. The office is a two-story, 32’ x 60’ red brick block with concrete foundation, a mix of round-arched and rectangular window openings with detailed brick surrounds and concrete sills, six-over-six wood double-hung and one-over-one replacement windows, a gabled brick parapet, and a flat roof. The primary entry to the plant is located on the eastern side of the office building’s façade, this comprised of a pass-through door set in a tall round-arched brick opening with a six-light transom and blind brick arch above. A one-story, steel-frame and red brick shipping and storage addition was erected adjoining the original building’s west and north elevation ca. 1940. This wraps around the northwest corner of the office building and extends across the entire north elevation of the plant. A concrete loading dock can be accessed from the west side of the factory from a driveway and large parking lot on that side of the parcel. Two further additions to the plant were completed ca. 1970. The first is a one-story, 15’ x 84’ concrete block addition adjoining the east elevation of the original building. This has a garage-style door opening on its south elevation and a shed roof running the full length of the block. The second is a one-and-a-half-story, 64’ x 40’ steel frame manufacturing block with metal sheathing and a clerestory monitor roof.

Exterior Material(s)

Structural System(s)

Roof Form

Roof Material

Power Source

Condition

Deteriorated

Condition Notes

The complex is in fair to deteriorated condition. The exterior walls and roofs appear to be in fair condition, however, many of the windows are damaged or have been replaced.

Property Information

Specific Location

One legal parcel (296 Homestead Avenue) totaling 0.866 acres located on the north side of Homestead Avenue, roughly 300’ west of Homestead Avenue’s intersection with Woodland Street.
Individually listed on the State Register of Historic Places.

Adjacent To

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Parcel ID / Assessor Record Link

  • 176/195/2 (for record, use link and type in address or parcel number) / Link →

Acreage

0.866

Use (Present)

Sources

Form Completed By

Lucas A. Karmazinas

Date

08/31/2015

Bibliography

  1. List of Connecticut Manufacturers, 1922, 1924, 1930, 1932.
  2. Directory of Connecticut State Manufacturers, 1936, 1939.
  3. Industrial Directory of Connecticut, 1947.
  4. Register of War Production Facilities in Connecticut, 1951.
  5. Map of Hartford County, H & C.T. Smith, 1855.
  6. Atlas of Hartford County, Beers, Baker & Tilden, 1869.
  7. Sanborn Map Company, 1885, 1900, 1917, 1920, 1923, 1950.
  8. Aerial Survey of Connecticut, 1934, 1965.
  9. Hartford City Directories, Various editions.
  10. The Hartford Courant, 1916, 1918, 1925, 1929, 1940, 1974.
Representative View(s)Click on image to view full file


Photographer

Lucas A. Karmazinas

Photography Date

08/31/2015