Thread City Crossing

Thread City Crossing. . , The frogs upon this bridge recount the celebrated Windham Frog Fight 0f 1754. The spools represent Willimantic’s historic prominence in cotton thread manufacture. David E. Phillips, an inspirational teacher and writer suggested the decorative design. , , Windham was founded in 1692. In May 1726 Connecticut’s General Court organized a new county to administrate growing settlements at Ashford, Canterbury, Killingly, Plainfield, Pomfret, Voluntown, Windham and Woodstock. Windham gave its name to the new county and was designated the administrative seat. By the mid-eighteenth century the town of Windham had developed into a thriving legal and mercantile community. , , The following account of Windham’s famous frog fight is condensed from David E. Phillips’ Legendary Connecticut (1984). In 1754 Windham’s Colonel Eliphalet Dyer raised a local regiment to fight in the French and Indian War. Those left behind felt vulnerable to attack. The Windhamites worst fears seemed realized during a steamy-hot June night when unearthly screams emanated from the darkness. Valiant villages grabbed musket and fired blindly into the night. Some believed that the Day of Judgement had arrived and gave prayer. Others hid under their beds. , , The awful truth was revealed at dawn. Several hundred dead and dying bullfrogs were discovered in a dried-up millpond, two miles east of the village center. They had fought to the death in futile attempts to find moisture in the drought-ridden pond. Windham became forever known as the scene of the “Battle of the Frogs.” , , Between 1822 and 1857 five major cotton mills were built along the banks of Windham’s fast-flowing Willimantic River. In 1833 several small mill communities combined to form the industrial borough of Willimantic. The largest of those companies, Willimantic Linen (1854-1898), and its successor, American Cotton Thread (1898-1985) manufactured high quality cotton thread, and Willimantic became known worldwide as the Thread City. Several major silk manufacturers also operated in the borough after the Civil War. Cotton and silk spools thus accompany frogs as historic symbols of Windham. , , In 1857 the Willimantic Linen Company built a large cotton mill and bridge constructed from gneiss stone mined from the bed of the Willimantic River. The Windham Road Bridge is located 200 yards to the east of this bridge. , , The borough expanded rapidly after the Civil War and as early as 1872 plans were drawn up to build a new highway bridge across the Willimantic River. To connect the borough’s southern suburbs to its commercial center. But vigorous opposition thwarted all attempts to build this new bridge. In 1903 the trolley car exposed the old stone bridge’s limitations, and in 1904 a project was launched to build a new highway bridge some 600 yard to the west. That scheme was also energetically opposed and the Willimantic footbridge exists as a 1906 compromise between pro and anti highway bridge forces. State Representative John Lescoe, first submitted a request for the funding of this bridge in 1986, and ground breaking eventually took place April 6, 1999. It has taken more than a century to become a reality, but welcome to Thread City Crossing. , Thomas R. Beardsley , Windham Municipal Historian