Bridgeport, Connecticut

Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Island Sound, it is from Manhattan and from The Bronx. It is bordered by the towns of Trumbull to the north, Fairfield to the west, and Stratford to the east. Bridgeport and other towns in Fairfield County make up the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolitan statistical area, the second largest metropolitan area in Connecticut. The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolis forms part of the New York metropolitan area.

Inhabited by the Pauguseett Native American tribe until English settlement in the 1600s, Bridgeport was incorporated in 1821 as a town, and as a city in 1836. Showman P. T. Barnum was a resident of the city and served as the town's mayor (1871). Barnum built four houses in Bridgeport and housed his circus in town during winter. The city in the early 20th century saw an economic and population boom, becoming by all measures Connecticut's chief manufacturing city by 1905. Bridgeport was the site of the world's first mutual telephone exchange (1877), the first dental hygiene school (1949), and the first bank telephone bill service in the US (1981). Inventor Harvey Hubbell II invented the electric plug outlet in Bridgeport in 1912. The Frisbie Pie Company was founded and operated in Bridgeport, and the city is credited as the birthplace of the Frisbee.
The world's first Subway restaurant opened in the city's North End in 1965. After World War II, industrial restructuring and suburbanization caused the loss of many large companies and affluent residents, leaving Bridgeport struggling with issues of poverty, violent crime, and a bad image.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Bridgeport has begun extensive redevelopment of its downtown and other neighborhoods. Bridgeport's crime rate started going down significantly around 2010, and by 2018 had been reduced by almost 50 percent.Bridgeport is home to 3 museums, the University of Bridgeport, Housatonic Community Collage, Paier College, and part of Sacred Heart University as well as the state's only zoo. Bridgeport is officially nickednamed "Park City", due to its public parks, 35 public parks taking up 1,300 acres, inclduing two large ones. Although none are headquarted within the city itself, more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies are based in its metropolitan area, which it shares with Stamford. Bridgeport by various sites has been consistently ranked as among the 25 most ethnicly and culturaly diverse American cities.

History

Bridgeport was inhabited by the Paugussett native American tribe during the start of European colonization. The earliest European communal settlement was in the historical Stratfield district, along US Route 1; known in colonial times as the King's Highway. Close by, Mount Grove Cemetery was laid out on what was a native village that extended past the 1650s. It is also an ancient Paugusett burial ground.

The burgeoning farming community grew and became a center of trade, shipbuilding, and whaling. The town was incorporated to subsidize the Housatonic Railroad and rapidly industrialized following the rail line's connection to the New York and New Haven railroad. The town was given its name because of the need for bridges over the Pequonnock River that provided a navigable port at the mouth of the river. Manufacturing was the mainstay of the local economy until the 1970s.

Colonial history

The first documented European settlement within the present city limits of Bridgeport took place in 1644, centered at Black Rock Harbor and along North Avenue between Park and Briarwood Avenues. The place was called Pequonnock (Quiripi for "Cleared Land"), after a band of the Paugussett, an Algonquian-speaking Native American people who occupied this area. One of their sacred sites was Golden Hill, which overlooked the harbor and was the location of natural springs and their planting fields. (It has since been blasted through for construction of an expressway.) The Golden Hill Indians were granted a reservation here by the Colony of Connecticut in 1639; it lasted until 1802. (One of the tribes acquired land for a small reservation in the late 19th century that was recognized by the state. It is retained in the Town of Trumbull.)

In 1639, Roger Ludlow, deputy governor of the English Connecticut Colony was ordered by the colony's General Assembly in Hartford to establish two plantations, one at Cupheg the mouth of the Housatonic River (today Stratford), and one at the harbor at the mouth of the Pequonnock River, today's Bridgeport Harbor. Ludlow disobeyed orders and instead established a settlement in Unconway (today's Fairfield), probably due to fears of the large Paugussett settlement at Golden Hill, which was a sacred site of theirs, so it is believed that they perhaps instead settled in sparsely populated land surrounding the village. In 1659, the general court in Hartford established the official borders of the Paugussett Reservation.

Bridgeport's early years were marked by residents' reliance on fishing and farming. This was similar to the economy of the Paugussett, who had cultivated corn, beans, and squash; and fished and gathered shellfish from both the river and sound. A village called Newfield began to develop around the corner of State and Water streets in the 1760s. The area officially became known as Stratfield in 1695 or 1701, due to its location between the already existing towns of ''Strat''ford and Fair''field''. During the American Revolution, Newfield Harbor was a center of privateering.

19th century

By the time of the State of Connecticut's ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, many of the local farmers held shares in vessels trading at Newfield Harbor or had begun trading in their own name. Newfield initially expanded around the coasting trade with Boston, New York, and Baltimore and the international trade with the West Indies. The commercial activity of the village was clustered around the wharves on the west bank of the Pequonnock, while the churches were erected inland on Broad Street. In 1787, the Fairfield County Court ordered the laying out and widening of what is now State Street and Main Street in downtown Bridgeport, along the Pequannock River then Newfield. It was assumed before the Revolution that this land would grow into a city.

In 1800, the village became the Borough of Bridgeport, the first so incorporated in the state. It was named for the Newfield or Lottery Bridge across the Pequonnock, connecting the wharves on its east and west banks.
Bridgeport Bank was established in 1806. In 1821, the township of Bridgeport became independent of Stratford.

In 1821, a small community of remaining Golden Hill Pauguasett Natives, along with free blacks and runaway slaves was established in the South End along Main Street known as Little Liberia, with its own churches, schools and hotels, and served as a stop in the underground railroad. Many remaining Paugusset Indians also lived there.

The West India trade died down around 1840, but by that time the Bridgeport Steamship Company (1824) and Bridgeport Whaling Company (1833) had been incorporated and the Housatonic Railroad chartered (1836). The HRRC ran upstate along the Housatonic Valley, connecting with Massachusetts's Berkshire Railroad at the state line. Bridgeport was chartered as Connecticut's fifth city in 1836 in order to enable the town council to secure funding (ultimately $150,000) to provide to the HRRC and ensure that it would terminate in Bridgeport. The Naugatuck Railroad—connecting Bridgeport to Waterbury and Winsted along the Naugatuck—was chartered in 1845 and began operation four years later. The same year, the New York and New Haven Railroad began operation, connecting Bridgeport to New York and the other towns along the north shore of the Long Island Sound. Now a major junction, the city began to industrialise.

The city's first immigrants were Irish Catholics who settled in the Sterling Hill section of the Hollow. Having come to the US to escape the famine, they arrived in town during the 1830s to build the railroad. They mostly lived in wooden four to six family tenements, often subdivided homes.

In 1842, showman P.T. Barnum spent a night in Bridgeport, and there met Charles Stratton, a local dwarf. He soon became part of Barnum's act and a star under the name "General Tom Thumb". Barnum moved to Bridgeport and built four houses in the city over the course of his life, the first being Iranistan.

In 1852, Barnum began an endeavor with William Noble to develop the land (inherited by Noble) on the other side of the Pequonnock River, across the river from Bridgeport to be known as " East Bridgeport" with Washington Park at the center. The new neighborhood had homes, commerce, and factories, centered around East Main Street. The neighborhood eventually became the East Side of Bridgeport (occasionally spelled "Eastside").

In 1863, during the Civil War, the ''Bridgeport Standard'' ran a series of articles encouraging the creation of a public park in the city. This led wealthy residents P.T. Barnum, William Noble and Nathaniel Wheeler to purchase the land on Long Island Sound and donating the land to the city in 1864. The land on the shore became Seaside Park. A second park was built near East Main Street, when in 1878, James Beardsley donated more than to the city along the Pequonnock River under the condition that the land be "kept the same forever as a public park". Both parks were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, known for creating Central Park. These two large public parks gave Bridgeport the nickname "The Park City".

The county's Roman Catholic seat, St. Augustine Cathedral was finished in 1869, built by the Irish who had arrived 30 year earlier. Saint James Church, predating the archdiocese of Hartford, was the first Roman Catholic congregation in Fairfield County, starting with 250 members in 1842. The congregation gave rise to St Augustine's in Sterling Hill, the seat of the Diocese of Bridgeport.

Following the Civil War, the town held several iron foundries and factories manufacturing firearms, metallic cartridges, horse harnesses, locks, and blinds. Wheeler & Wilson's sewing machines were exported throughout the world.
Bridgeport annexed the West End and the village of Black Rock and its busy harbor in 1870. In 1875, P. T. Barnum was elected mayor of the town, which afterwards served as the winter headquarters of Barnum and Bailey's Circus and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Barnum also helped establish Fairfield County's first hospital (Conn.'s 3rd) and the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson ferry, connecting the town to Long Island.

Harvey Hubbell founded Hubbell Incorporated in Bridgeport in 1888. The Holmes & Edwards Silver Co. was founded in 1882, its wares sold nationally, and the company became part of the International Silver Company in 1898. (The H&E brand continued well into the 1950s and was advertised in national magazines such as ''LIFE'' and ''Ladies' Home Journal''.)
Hungarian immigrants began to arrive, which led to the Ráckόczi Hungarian Aid Association in Bridgeport in 1887 and the American Hungarian Immigrant Aid Society 1892. They established themselves in the West End. In 1894, Bridgeport's Slavic immigrants played a major role in the development of the Orthodox Christian faith in America when they met with Fr Alexis Toth (now Saint Alexis) and founded Holy Ghost Russian Orthodox Church in the city's Eastside. This parish became the mother church of all Orthodox Churches in New England.

20th century

From 1870 to 1910, Bridgeport became the largest industrial center in Connecticut; its population rose from around 25,000 to over 100,000, including thousands of Irish, Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans, English, and Italian immigrants.
Jewish migration to the city began in the 1881, with an influx of Polish, Russian, and especially Hungarian Jews calling Bridgeport home. Bridgeport Jew Edwin Land grew up to invent the Polaroid.

In 1905, Bridgeport was already "the largest industrial center in the state, $49,381,348 was invested in manufacturing and the products being valued at $44,586,519." The city was a port of entry with its imports being valued at around $656,271 in 1908.

The Singer factory joined Wheeler & Wilson in producing sewing machines and the Locomobile Company of America was a prominent early automobile manufacturer, producing a prototype of the Stanley Steamer and various luxury cars.

The town was also the center of America's corset production, responsible for 19.9% of the national total, and became the headquarters of Remington Arms following its 1912 merger with the Union Metallic Cartridge Co. Around the time of the First World War, Bridgeport was also producing steam-fitting and heating apparatuses, brass goods, phonographs, typewriters, milling machines, brassieres, and saddles.

Brideport's Italian immigrants settled in the " Central End", today's Little Italy, and the city was the 3rd most Italian in the state by 1910. Their newspapers were the weekly ''La Tribuna de Connecticut'' (1906-1908) and later ''La Sentinella'' (1920-1948)
The West End along Wordin Avenue, known as "Hunktown", grew into one of the largest Hungarian communities in the US. It was visited by Hungarian republicans trying to take down the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, in order to garner support. The West Side nearby was home to Slovenians, French-Canadians and Swedish immigrants. By 1910 Bridgeport had grown into second largest city in Connecticut at 102,052, behind New Haven.

Between 1910 and 1920, during World War I, the city's population exploded from 102,054 to 143,555, due to the city's role in the First World War. Bridgeport had the largest factory in the world at the time, the new Remington Arms