The Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District is a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

that was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1988. It includes 867 properties, which "include 858 major structures and 131 notable outbuildings." Of these structures, 876 are buildings deemed to contribute to the historical and/or architectural significance of the area, and most of these are residential. However the center of the district is "dominated" by the tract of the former

Winchester Repeating Arms Company The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership ...

, which contains industrial buildings. The district includes and surrounds the old Winchester plant later run by

U.S. Repeating Arms The U.S. Repeating Arms Company (USRAC) was an American manufacturer of firearms. It was established in 1981 and operated as an independent company until 1989, when it went bankrupt and was taken over by Fabrique Nationale Herstal. The company t ...

; the plant was important to both of its adjoining residential neighborhoods. Some of the plant has been operated by Science Park at Yale, a business incubator with Yale University associations.

Significance

According to the district's 1987 nomination document:

The district is historically significant for two reasons. First its core encompasses the extensive surviving portions of the industrial complex developed by the former Winchester Repeating Arms Company, one of the nation's foremost late 19th- and early 20th-century armament manufacturers. Second, the district as a whole forms New Haven's most nearly intact and cohesive surviving example of the inherent relationship between the growth of modern industry and the emergence of large working-class residential neighborhoods, a relationship typically associated with the development of many of the nation's northeastern urban communities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Criterion A). The district is architecturally significant for three reasons. First, its core embraces numerous examples of period industrial structures. Second, the majority of these structures were built for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company according to designs provided by
Leoni W. Robinson Leoni W. Robinson (1851-1923) was a leading architect in New Haven, Connecticut. Life and career Leoni Warren Robinson was born September 26, 1851, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Warren Robinson, a builder, and Sarah Howard (Woodward) Robinson. ...
, one of New Haven's premier late 19/early 20th-century architects. Finally, the district's predominantly residential perimeter areas encompass a host of relatively intact single- and multi-family workers' houses as well as several significant examples of commercial, religious, and municipal buildings dating from this same era. As a group, these perimeter-area buildings represent a variety of important and popular vernacular architectural styles of the era, including late
Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
,
Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
,
Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
, Queen Anne and
Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...
(Criterion C).

Residential development

Residential development in the district included development of tenement buildings for one, two or three families. Examples are as depicted in accompanying photo 2 (134-36, 138-40, 142-44, 146-48 Mansfield St.), photo 4 (166-68, 162-64, 156-58, 152-54, 146-48 Sheffield St., photo 5 (220-30 Division St.), photo 13 (567 Dixwell Ave.), photo 16 (552-54, 558 Winchester Ave.) and photo 20 (368, 370, 374, 378 Dixwell Ave.). Two speculators who were very successful with such residential development were Joseph Sheldon and John W. Bishop: "these men were the moving force behind the 19th-century development of virtually all of the properties which currently line both sides of Admiral and most of Henry Streets, as well as the construction of most of the houses along the southwestern side of Munson Street directly opposite the Winchester complex. Their work is depicted in accompanying photo 22 (51, 49, 43, 41, 39 Henry St.), photo 12 (49, 53, 55, 59 Admiral St.) and accompanying photo 9 (206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, and 220-22 Munson St.).

Industrial development

The Winchester firm had started operations on Union Street in the

Wooster Square Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square (named for the American Revolutionary War hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel S ...

neighborhood of New Haven, and moved to Bridgeport in 1866. It relocated from Bridgeport to New Haven in 1870, to the current location in the district. The original buildings which it built no longer exist. The firm grew to more than 600 employees by 1887 and "well in excess of 1,000" by the early 1900s.

Streets

Streets in the district include: *Mansfield Street :Accompanying photo 1 depicts houses at 72, 76, 82 Mansfield St. :Accompanying photo 2 depicts 134-36, 138-40, 142-44, 146-48 Mansfield St. :Accompanying photo 3 depicts 182, 184 Mansfield St. *Sheffield Street :Accompanying photo 4 depicts 166-68, 162-64, 156-58, 152-54, 146-48 Sheffield St. :Accompanying photo 6 depicts the Shelton Avenue School, at 155 Sheffield St. *Division Street ::Accompanying photo 5 depicts 220-30 Division St. *Winchester Avenue ::Accompanying photos 7, 8, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 depict the Winchester Repeating Arms Company complex, at 275 Winchester Ave., with some other properties also in view in some of the photos ::Accompanying photo 16 depicts 552-54, 558 Winchester Ave. ::Accompanying photo 23 depicts the McKesson and Robbins factory building, at 182 Winchester Ave. *Munson Street ::Accompanying photo 9 depicts 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220-22 Munson St. *Thompson Street ::Accompanying photo 10 depicts Newhall's Boarding House, built in 1860, at 55-57 Thompson St. *Ivy Street ::Accompanying photo 11 depicts the Ivy Street School, at 1-41 Ivy St. *Admiral Street ::Accompanying photo 12 depicts 49, 53, 55, 59 Admiral St. *Dixwell Avenue ::Accompanying photo 13 depicts 567 Dixwell Ave. ::Accompanying photo 14 depicts 495 Dixwell Ave. ::Accompanying photo 17 depicts 459 Dixwell Ave., with decorative

bargeboard Bargeboard (probably from Medieval Latin ''bargus'', or ''barcus'', a scaffold, and not from the now obsolete synonym "vergeboard") or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to ...

::Accompanying photo 20 depicts 368, 370, 374, 378 Dixwell Ave. ::Accompanying photo 21 depicts 287-89, 297-301 Dixwell Ave. *Shelton Avenue ::Accompanying photo 15 depicts 140 Shelton Ave. ::Accompanying photo 19 depicts 7-11, 13-15 Shelton Ave. *Newhall Street ::Accompanying photo 18 depicts 141, 145-47 Newhall St. *Henry Street ::Accompanying photo 22 depicts 51, 49, 43, 41, 39 Henry St.

Relationship to neighborhoods

The district is located in the

Newhallville Newhallville is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, named for industrialist George Newhall. As delineated on city planning maps, Newhallville is bordered on the north by the town of Hamden, on the east by Winchester Avenue, on ...

and Dixwell neighborhoods defined by the city of

.Maps of the New Haven Neighborhoods
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

) are available from th
City of New Haven's City Plan Department
There are also quick traces from the above PDFs i
Google Earth/Map Shapes of the New Haven Neighborhoods
(

KML Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with Google Earth, which was originally named Key ...

). The 1987 NRHP nomination document reads: the "255-acre district includes most of the southern and northern portions of the city's Newhallville and Dixwell neighborhoods, respectively." and

Gallery

File:Winchester1.jpg, Newhall's Boarding House (1860), 55-57 Thompson St. File:Winchester9.jpg, 220-22 Division St. (about 1875), frame row houses and small church. File:Winchester4.jpg, 201 Winchester Ave. File:Winchester12.jpg, McKesson and Robbins factory building (1930s), 182 Winchester Ave. File:552-4 Winchester Avenue.jpg, 552-4 Winchester Ave. (Demolished.) File:Winchester6.jpg, 558 Winchester Ave. File:Winchester2.jpg, Houses on Admiral St. File:Winchester11.jpg, Houses on Sheffield St. File:Winchester7.jpg, Houses on Mansfield St. File:Winchester8.jpg, 109-111 Mansfield St. File:Winchester10.jpg, Ivy Street School (1907), 1-41 Ivy St. File:New Haven Munson St Winchester Ave intersection Winchester Plant NARA-55176778.jpg, Munson-Winchester intersection, photo from 1918

References

External links

Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District
New Haven Preservation Trust website (text excerpt from NRHP nomination) {{Herstal Group Queen Anne architecture in Connecticut Colonial Revival architecture in Connecticut Italianate architecture in Connecticut Historic districts in New Haven, Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in New Haven, Connecticut Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut