Connecticut Towns and Cities:
How They Grew

Transportation Hubs

Access to transportation often determined whether a city lived or died. Travel overland by road was rough and slow. Towns located along navigable waterways had an advantage in the beginning since they could use ships to transport goods and materials. In the early 19th century, entrepreneurs hoped that canals would provide cheap water transportation for inland towns. This role was rapidly taken over railroads, beginning in the 1830s. Railroads proved a highly effective and flexible means to transport goods. Towns that had railroads prospered. Towns that did not withered away. Shipping also remained important and railroad lines connected with steamship lines in port cities such as Bridgeport, New Haven, New London and Norwich. As highways improved in the 20th century, trucks gradually replaced trains as the primary means of transportation for goods and automobiles became the primary means of travel for individuals.

< Bridgeport in this view looks like a typical small seaport with buildings along the waterfront and sailing ships and steamships in the harbor. It is connected to the opposite shore by a bridge, providing access to the road between New York and Boston. Several church steeples tower over the other buildings.

John Warner Barber
Bridgeport
Bridgeport, 1849
Photo CD: 2825 File: Img0100.pcd

< This pencil sketch view by John Warner Barber was done a little over ten years after the previous image of exactly the same area. Where there were formerly small frame buildings, there are now large factories and warehouses. Notes by the artist indicate steam boat stops, and there are railroad tracks running right along the edge of the water. The same church steeples are still visible, but they are almost obscured by the larger waterfront buildings.

Unknown
Bridgeport waterfront
Bridgeport, ca.1880-1888
Photo CD:0523 File: Img0006.pcd

< The Bridgeport waterfront in the 1880s was a bustling hub of activity. Here lumber, probably from Maine, is being unloaded from a schooner directly onto waiting railroad cars. Schooners continued in use for the transportation of lumber and granite well into the 20th century.

< At Norwich, the Shetucket and Yantic Rivers join to form the Thames and a natural harbor that was the primary reason Norwich developed as a successful shipping and transportation center. At one point in the 19th century, Norwich was a larger city than either Hartford or New Haven.

< The Norwich and Worcester Railroad, which first opened in 1840, connected directly with the Norwich line of steamboats, providing an alternate route for transportation of goods and people between New York and Boston. Passenger trains ran until the 1920s and freight trains continue to use the route to this day.

< With its three connecting waterways and its railroad lines, Norwich quickly became a city of many bridges. Without bridges, rivers and other waterways could actually obstruct land transportation. However bridges needed to be low enough to allow boats to pass beneath them or them—or equipped as drawbridges—or they could obstruct water traffic.

Link to other essays in this Journey:

>> Introduction: Connecticut Towns and Cities: How They Grew
>> Early Towns
>> Town Greens
>> Factory Villages
>> Expansion into Suburban Living

>> Guideposts
>> Suggestions for further reading