i

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

Coltsville 

November 2009

Special Resource Study
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This report has been prepared to provide Congress and the public with information 

about the resources in the study area and how they relate to criteria for inclusion 

within the national park system. Publication and transmittal of this report should not 

be considered an endorsement or a commitment by the National Park Service to seek 

or support either specific legislative authorization for the project or appropriation 

for its implementation. Authorization and funding for any new commitments by 

the National Park Service will have to be considered in light of competing priorities 

for existing units of the national park system and other programs. This report was 

prepared by the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 

Northeast Region. For additional copies or more information contact:

National Park Service 

Northeast Region 

Division of Park Planning & Special Studies 

200 Chestnut Street, 3rd Floor 

Philadelphia, PA 19106 

215 597 1848

National Park Service 

Northeast Region 

Division of Park Planning & Special Studies 

15 State Street 

Boston, MA 02109 

617 223 5222
Coltsville

November 2009

Special Resource Study

Executive Summary

Public Law 108-94, the Coltsville Study Act of 2003, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to 

conduct a Special Resource Study regarding the national significance, suitability and feasibility of 

the Coltsville Historic District, in Hartford, Connecticut, for potential designation as a unit of the 

national park system. This report constitutes the results of the study undertaken by the Northeast 

Regional Office of the National Park Service (NPS).

This study, in accordance with previous legislation (Public Law 105-391) establishing the criteria to 

be used in such analyses and reflecting current NPS management policies, examines the national 

significance of the Coltsville Historic District, its suitability and feasibility for potential designation 

as a unit of the national park system, and the need for NPS management of the resource versus 

management by other public or private entities. 

The Coltsville Historic District in Hartford, Connecticut, was the site of important contributions to 

manufacturing technology made by Samuel Colt (1814-1862) and the industrial enterprise he founded, 

Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company (Colt Fire Arms Company). The Coltsville Historic 

District (Coltsville) is a cohesive and readily identifiable 260-acre area, most of which was originally 

listed as the Colt Industrial District on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Also in the 

district, the home of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt was designated the Armsmear National Historic 

Landmark (NHL) in 1966. On July 22, 2008, the Coltsville Historic District was designated an NHL

by the Secretary of the Interior.

Samuel Colt is most renowned for developing a revolver design, which revolutionized personal 

firearms by eliminating the need to reload until five or six shots had been expended. His company 

drew upon the technological innovations of the firearms industry in New England to achieve a 

high level of mechanization and production. The Colt Fire Arms Company was a highly influential 

national source of innovation in precision manufacturing and firearms design well into the 20th 

century. 

During both World War I and World War II, the Colt Fire Arms Company was one of the nation’s 

leading small arms producers and made a vital contribution to the US war effort. Coltsville also is 

noteworthy because Samuel Colt planned it as a fully-integrated industrial community that includes 

manufacturing facilities, employee housing, community buildings, and landscape features built 

largely under the direction of Samuel Colt and his wife, Elizabeth Colt. 

The Hartford-based Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee, with representatives from government, nonprofit, 

and private sectors, has been working for several years to develop support for a unit of the national 

park system at Coltsville. Strong community support for the NHL and unit designations was expressed 

at public meetings held to discuss this Special Resource Study and a potential National Historic 

Landmark designation for additional resources within the historic district. 

Chapter 1 describes the purpose and background of the study, including the criteria used by the NPS

to determine if a resource is eligible for potential designation as a unit of the national park system. It 

describes the study area and other related activities associated with the district and the study process. 
Chapter 2 describes the history and resources of Coltsville from its development by Samuel Colt 

in 1855 until the present day. The chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive historical account. 

Rather, it provides the basis for public understanding of the resources of the district and information 

sufficient to determine whether the district meets applicable criteria for potential designation. 

Chapter 3 analyzes whether the resources of the district meet the various criteria for potential unit 

designation including national significance, suitability, feasibility, and need for NPS management. 

Chapter 4 describes the required consultation and coordination that occurred during the study, 

including a summary of public meetings and written communications.

The study team concludes that the Coltsville Historic District NHL meets the criteria for national 

significance and suitability. The study team is unable, however, to conclude that the historic district 

meets the criteria for feasibility and need for NPS management for reasons explained in Chapter 3. 

With the publication of this report, the NPS will receive public comments on its contents and 

findings for a period of thirty days. A public response document will then be prepared and sent to all 

persons who commented on the report. At the conclusion of the public response period, the report 

with any appropriate changes resulting from public comments will be forwarded to the Secretary of 

the Interior. The Secretary will then transmit the completed study to the United States Congress.
Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Study Purpose and Background

Introduction

Study Area

Previous Designations

The National Park Service in Connecticut

Local Activities in Support for a Coltsville National Park Unit

Heritage Organizations and National Historic Landmarks Related to Coltsville

Chapter 2: Historical Resources and Overview

Introduction

Resources

Historical Overview of Samuel Colt and Coltsville

Chapter 3: Designation Analysis

Introduction

National Significance Analysis

Suitability Analysis

Feasibility Analysis

Analysis of the Need for National Park Service Management

Study Conclusions

Environmental Compliance

Chapter 4: Consultation and Public Outreach

Notice of Intent

Public Scoping Meeting

Additional Meetings and Public Participation

Written Communication 

Consultation 

Appendices

Appendix 1: Federal Legislation for Coltsville SRS

Appendix 2: Bibliography

Appendix 3: Study Team 

Appendix 4: Letters of Consultation

Appendix 5: Letters of Support for Coltsville National Park Unit

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Chapter 1: Study Purpose And Background

Introduction

Public Law 108-94, the Coltsville Study Act of 2003, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to 

conduct a study regarding the national significance and suitability and feasibility of the Coltsville 

Industrial District, in Hartford, Connecticut, for potential designation as a unit of the national 

park system. The legislation also requires evaluation of the importance of the site as it relates to the 

history of precision manufacturing. This report constitutes the results of the study undertaken by an 

interdisciplinary team of professionals within the Northeast Regional Office of the National 

Park Service (NPS).

Areas comprising the present 391 unit national park system are cumulative expressions of a single 

national heritage. Potential additions to the system should, therefore, contribute in their own 

special way to a system that fully represents the broad spectrum of natural and cultural resources 

that characterize our nation. The NPS is responsible for conducting professional studies of potential 

additions to the national park system when specifically authorized by an Act of Congress, and for 

making findings regarding new areas to the Secretary of the Interior, the President, and Congress. 

Several laws outline criteria for potential units of the national park system. To receive a favorable 

finding from the NPS, a proposed addition to the national park system must 

(1) possess nationally significant natural or cultural resources; 

(2) be a suitable addition to the system; 

(3) be a feasible addition to the system; and 

(4) require direct NPS management, instead of alternative protection by other public agencies, 

tribes or the private sector. 

These criteria are designed to ensure that the national park system includes only the most 

outstanding examples of the nation’s natural and cultural resources. They also recognize that there 

are other alternatives, short of designation as a unit of the national park system, for preserving the 

nation’s outstanding resources.

An area or resource may be considered nationally significant if it is an outstanding example of a 

particular type of resource; possesses exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting 

the natural or cultural themes of our nation’s heritage; offers superlative opportunities for public 

enjoyment or for scientific study; and retains a high degree of integrity as a true, accurate, and 

relatively unspoiled example of a resource. National significance for cultural resources, such as those 

comprising the Coltsville Historic District, is evaluated by applying the National Historic Landmarks 

criteria contained in 36 Code of Federal Regulations Part 65. 

An area may be considered suitable for potential addition to the national park system if it represents 

a natural or cultural resource type that is not already adequately represented in the system, or is 

not comparably represented and protected for public enjoyment by other federal agencies; tribal, 

state, or local governments; or the private sector. The suitability evaluation, therefore, is not limited 

solely to units of the national park system, but includes evaluation of all comparable resource types 

protected by others.
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Suitability is determined on a case-by-case basis by comparing the resources being studied to other 

comparably managed areas representing the same resource type, while considering differences or 

similarities in the character, quality, quantity, or combination of resource values. The suitability 

analysis also addresses the rarity of the resources, interpretive and educational potential, and similar 

resources already protected in the national park system or in other public or private ownership. The 

comparison results in a determination of whether the potential new area would expand, enhance, or 

duplicate resource protection or visitor use opportunities found in other comparably managed areas. 

To be feasible as a new unit of the national park system, an area must be of sufficient size and 

appropriate configuration to ensure sustainable resource protection and visitor enjoyment (taking 

into account current and potential impacts from sources beyond its boundaries), and be capable 

of efficient administration by the NPS at a reasonable cost. In evaluating feasibility, the Service 

considers a variety of factors, such as: size; boundary configurations; current and potential uses of 

the study area and surrounding lands; land ownership patterns; public enjoyment potential; costs 

associated with acquisition, development, restoration, and operation; access; current and potential 

threats to the resources; existing degradation of resources; staffing requirements; local planning 

and zoning for the study area; the level of local and general public support; and, the economic/

socioeconomic impacts of designation as a unit of the national park system. The evaluation also 

considers the ability of the NPS to undertake new management responsibilities in light of current 

and projected constraints on funding and personnel. 

There are many excellent examples of the successful management of important natural and cultural 

resources by other public agencies, private conservation organizations, and individuals. Most 

notably, state park systems provide for protection of natural and cultural resources throughout the 

nation and offer outstanding recreational experiences. The NPS applauds these accomplishments, 

and actively encourages the expansion of conservation activities by state, local, and private entities, 

and by other federal agencies. Unless direct NPS management of a studied area is identified as the 

clearly superior alternative, the Service will recommend that one or more of these other entities 

assume a lead management role, and that the area not be recommended as a potential unit of the 

national park system.

Studies evaluate an appropriate range of management alternatives and identify which alternative or 

combination of alternatives would be most effective and efficient in protecting significant resources 

and providing opportunities for appropriate public enjoyment. Alternatives to NPS management 

are not normally developed for study areas that fail to meet any one of the four criteria for inclusion 

listed above, particularly the “national significance” criterion. 

In cases where a study area’s resources meet the criteria for national significance, but do not meet other 

criteria for inclusion in the national park system, the Service may instead recommend an alternative 

status, such as “affiliated” area. To be eligible for “affiliated area” status, the area’s resources must: 

Boston

Springeld

MASSACHUSETTS

Hartford

New York City

NEW YORK

CONNECTICUT

RHODE

ISLAND Providence

Locus map for Hartford, 

Connecticut, in the Northeast
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(1) meet the same standards for national significance that apply to units of the national park system; 

(2) require some special recognition or technical assistance beyond what is available through existing 

NPS programs; 

(3) be managed in accordance with the policies and standards that apply to units of the national park 

system; and 

(4) be assured of sustained resource protection, as documented in a formal agreement between the 

NPS and the non-federal management entity. 

Designation as a National Heritage Area is another option that could be recommended. Heritage 

areas are distinctive landscapes that are designated by Congress, but which do not necessarily meet 

the same standards of national significance. Either of these two alternatives would recognize an 

area’s importance to the nation without requiring or implying management by the NPS. 

A Notice of Intent to undertake a Special Resource Study/Environmental Impact Statement (SRS/

EIS) was published in the Federal Register on September 2, 2004. In cases where resources do not 

meet the required criteria for potential designation as units of the national park system, the EIS

portion of the study is not undertaken and a notice indicating that action is published in the Federal 

Register upon the conclusion of the study. Therefore, a notice will be placed in the Federal Register 

that an environmental impact statement will not be prepared. 

This study has been conducted by the NPS Northeast Region’s Park Planning and Special Studies 

Branch. The project team included planners, historians, curators, and architects based in the 

Northeast Region’s Boston and Philadelphia offices. Advisers have included specialists in industrial 

Location of the study area of the 

Coltsville Special Resource Study, 

Hartford, Connecticut. Bruce 

Clouette, based on United States 

Geological Survey base map.
6

archeology and history; business, urban, and labor history; historic districts and structures; and 

historic collections. The study team has had primary responsibility for conducting the study process, 

producing this report, and has been responsible for coordinating the involvement of other public 

agencies and the public in the study.

Study Area

The city of Hartford, Connecticut is located in the north central portion of the state, along the 

Connecticut River. Hartford is the state capital of Connecticut and has an estimated 2007 population 

of 124,563 (U.S. Census Bureau); it is the state’s second largest city. 

Hartford is served by air transportation through Bradley International Airport, located in Windsor 

Locks, Connecticut, 20 minutes north of the downtown. Rail transportation is provided by 

Amtrak with connections through New Haven to New York City and Boston. Hartford sits at the 

intersection of two interstate highways (I-84 and I-91).

Hartford is implementing a downtown revitalization strategy that seeks to develop a critical mass 

of downtown market-rate housing, which would support downtown shopping, restaurants, and 

cultural life. The downtown plan seeks to knit together the fragmented sections of the downtown 

into a cohesive whole that becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Much attention is being 

focused on redeveloping the Riverfront area known as Adriaen’s Landing. This is the site of the 

Connecticut Convention Center, the Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration, the Hartford 

Marriott Downtown Hotel, and new shops and housing. Located just south of the redevelopment 

activity in downtown Hartford, Coltsville serves as a southern extension of the redevelopment 

activity. City of Hartford officials regard the redevelopment of Coltsville and establishing a national 

park there an important part of its overall redevelopment strategy.

Study area of the Coltsville Special 

Resource Study, in Hartford, 

Connecticut. The study area’s 

boundary is coterminous with 

the boundary of the Coltsville 

Historic District National Historic 

Landmark. Bruce Clouette, based on 

Metropolitan District Commission 

base map.
7

Coltsville, itself, is located in the Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood of Hartford. The 

neighborhood is bounded on the east by Interstate-91 and the Connecticut River. The Coalition to 

Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak Neighborhood, Inc. is the neighborhood’s primary community 

development organization, seeking to promote development of the 335-acre neighborhood. The 

Coalition to Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak Neighborhood has been active in promoting the 

historic preservation and interpretation of Coltsville. 

Hartford has plans to reconnect Coltsville with the Connecticut River, now separated by I-91. In 

the 19th century, the Colt Fire Arms factory had a dock on the Connecticut River where it sent 

and received shipments, but the construction of Interstate-91 during the 1960s effectively walled 

off the Colt factory from the river. The nonprofit organization Riverfront Recapture, Inc., has 

been developing a continuous public park for the length of the banks of the Connecticut River in 

Hartford since its original plan was published in 1982. Much of this has been achieved, but the largest 

uncompleted section is on the riverfront opposite Coltsville. The 3,700-foot stretch, between the 

existing Riverfront Plaza, near downtown, and Charter Oak Landing, near the Charter Oak Bridge, is 

called Riverwalk South. Access to the riverfront from Coltsville currently is blocked by railroad tracks, 

Interstate-91, and a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dike built in 1942. Riverfront Recapture, Inc., plans 

to create an opening in the dike, which would have a working gate to protect against flooding. The 

City is seeking federal funds to partly fund the connection between Coltsville and the riverfront.

The Coltsville Industrial District, the subject for this study, comprises 260 acres at the southern 

edge of Hartford’s downtown section. The study area is bounded by Van Dyke Avenue, Vredendale 

Avenue, Huyshope Avenue, Sequassen Street, Van Block Avenue, and Masseek Street. 

Previous Designations

On November 11, 1966, Armsmear, the home of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt, was designated a 

National Historic Landmark (NHL) by the Secretary of the Interior. Colt planned and built the 

Italianate style house at 80 Wethersfield Avenue in 1857 as a family residence when he married 

Elizabeth Colt on June 5, 1856. Today, the dwelling serves as a 51 unit complex for retired single 

women operated by the Episcopal Church. 

The Colt Industrial District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 8, 1976. 

The district includes Armsmear, the Colt Fire Arms factory complex, Colt Park, three manager 

houses, and worker housing. A boundary increase to the district occurred in 2001 and included 

seven buildings and one structure situated on the north side of Sequassen Street between Van 

Dyke Avenue and Huyshope Avenue. These buildings were erected between 1916 and 1947. During 

the course of this study, the entire historic district was designated the Coltsville Historic District 

National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on July 22, 2008. The period of 

significance for the Landmark is 1855 to 1945. 

The National Park Service in Connecticut

The NPS has enjoyed lengthy and collaborative relationships with the governments, organizations 

and citizens of Connecticut in furthering the protection of natural and cultural resources. A unit of 

the national park system, Weir Farm, located in Ridgefield and Wilton, preserves, and interprets the 

landscapes, buildings and objects which together form a place of central importance to the art of 

Julian Alden Weir and the American Impressionist movement. 

In 1994, the U.S. Congress designated an area comprising 26 communities in northeast Connecticut 

as the Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor. The corridor was 

extended in 1999 to include nine communities of the state of Massachusetts. The NPS provides 

financial and technical assistance to national heritage areas. In 2006, Congress designated the Upper 

Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, with eight communities in northwest Connecticut, and 18 

communities in western Massachusetts. 
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The Land and Water Conservation Fund, administered by the National Park Service, has provided 

grants to state and local governments of Connecticut in excess of $63.4 million for land acquisition, 

development and redevelopment of open space and recreational resources affecting close to 28,000 

acres. The NPS Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA has provided technical 

assistance to numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations in Connecticut for 18 

conservation and trails development projects since 2000. RTCA projects currently underway include 

the French River Greenway and the Naugatuck River Greenway. 

Connecticut contains 61 National Historic Landmarks including the Coltsville Historic District. 

In addition to Coltsville, NHLs in Hartford include the A. Everett Austin House, Henry Barnard 

House, the Connecticut State Capitol, the old state Capitol, and the Mark Twain House. The 

NPS administers the NHL program and provides technical preservation assistance to designated 

properties. NHLs are also eligible to apply for Save America’s Treasures grants. 

Local Activities in Support of a Coltsville National Park Unit

Interest in recognizing the historic significance of Coltsville has been strong in Hartford. In 1996, the 

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art hosted an exhibit entitled “Colt: The Making of an American 

Legend.” The exhibit and companion book of the same title, written by William Hosley, stoked local 

support for celebrating the story of Samuel Colt and his company. The 2006 Wadsworth Atheneum 

exhibit “Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention” strengthened awareness of Colt’s technological and 

marketing genius. Samuel Colt was featured on the PBS program “They Made America” (2004). The 

companion book by Harold Evans, They Made America (2004) maintained: 

“Whether Colt’s revolver defended or retarded civilization is endlessly arguable, but there can be no 

doubt his advances in precision manufacturing and his iconic marketing methods advanced American 

industrialization and marked a coming of age of the ideal of American individualism.” 

The Coltsville study legislation was sponsored by Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph 

Lieberman, and Congressman John B. Larson who formed the local Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee 

to work on preserving and interpreting Coltsville as a unit of the National Park System. The 

committee has included congressional staff, state and local officials, the Colt Gateway developer, and 

representatives of local cultural and historical institutions and interested community organizations. 

The study team met with the committee, at its invitation, on a number of occasions during the course 

of the study. The committee provided extensive information relating to the resources and history of 

Coltsville and the successful Coltsville NHL nomination. It also assisted in organizing public meetings 

related to the study and the NHL nomination. In order to provide information on the feasibility of 

a unit of the National Park System at Coltsville, the committee obtained funding from the State of 

Connecticut’s Commission on Culture and Tourism to hire a consultant team to examine various 

visitor experience scenarios at Coltsville. Working with the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee, the 

consultant team developed a report “Coltsville National Park Visitor Experience Study” (December, 

2008). The NPS study team reviewed the scenarios developed in the Visitor Experience Study to 

evaluate the feasibility of viable visitor experiences at Coltsville. 

Heritage Organizations and National Historic Landmarks Related to Coltsville

There are a number of places and organizations located within the city of Hartford but outside of 

the study area that have associations with Samuel and Elizabeth Colt. These include:

Museum of Connecticut History 

The museum operates under the Connecticut State Library. The purpose of the museum, which 

was established in 1910, is to interpret the political, constitutional, social, and economic history 

of Connecticut. It has a concentration in industrial history, collecting objects such as firearms, 

industrial machinery, clocks, household appliances, hand tools, and other manufactured products. 
9

In 1957, the museum obtained the Colt Fire Arms Collection, assembled by the Colt Firearms 

Company over many years. The collection has 1,500 firearms, 350 of which are Colt firearms and the 

remainder manufactured by other companies. The collection includes firearms designed by Samuel 

Colt himself, as well as factory prototypes and “presentation” arms given to dignitaries. The museum 

also owns the original “rampant colt,” the emblem of the Colt Fire Arms Company that once stood 

atop the factory’s onion dome (currently a fiberglass replica is on the dome). 

The museum owns a collection of approximately 50 pieces of industrial machinery, including one 

piece that was originally used at the Colt Fire Arms factory (starting in the 1930s, many historic Colt 

machines were lost when the company modernized and discarded them). Other pieces of machinery 

in the state museum collection are similar to machines once used by Colt. The museum currently 

keeps all of these machines in storage, but hopes ultimately to exhibit some of them. The museum’s 

collections also include bicycles, sewing machines, typewriters, and other local products made with 

technology developed at the Colt Fire Arms Company.

The museum has expressed a willingness to work with the NPS to provide short- or long-term loans 

of Colt-related artifacts. 

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art 

This museum, established in 1842, is the oldest public art museum in the United States. The 

Atheneum has a significant comprehensive collection which features European and American art 

and decorative arts, contemporary art, costumes, and textiles. The Atheneum received a bequest 

from Elizabeth Colt upon her death in 1905. The bequest included a large collection of rare firearms, 

art, armor, curios, and documents. Elizabeth Colt gave the Atheneum $50,000 ($1.75 million in 

today’s dollars) to build the Colt Memorial Wing to display her collection. For much of the last 

century, the Wadsworth Atheneum displayed Elizabeth Colt’s collection. It mounted a major 

exhibition in 1996 based on her collection which interpreted the career of her husband Samuel, 

her philanthropic career, and the impact of the Colt Fire Arms Company on Hartford. The exhibit 

“Colt: The Making of a Legend” was curated by William Hosley, and a book by the same name was 

published by the University of Massachusetts Press. In 2006, the Atheneum mounted an exhibit, 

“Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention.” The focus of this exhibit was on firearms, particularly those 

objects dating to the career of Samuel Colt. A companion catalogue was written by Herbert Houze 

and published by the Yale University Press. 

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has expressed an interest in working with the NPS

should a unit of the national park system be established at Coltsville.

Connecticut Historical Society 

This organization has one of the most important historical museum and library collections in the 

state. The Society has extensive collections of costumes, furniture, tavern signs, paintings, tools, and 

clocks. The museum collection does not include artifacts directly connected with the Colt Fire Arms 

Company, but it does interpret the history of industry in Connecticut and has expressed an interest 

in working with the NPS should a unit of the National Park System be established at Coltsville.

Cedar Hill Cemetery 

The cemetery is the burial site of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt and their children. Elizabeth Colt was 

the first subscriber of the romantic garden Cedar Hill Cemetery, which was opened in 1866. The Colt 

Family 32-foot-high funerary monument features a bronze Colt-Jarvis coat of arms and a statue of 

the angel Gabriel by sculptor Randolph Rogers.
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Chapter 2

Resources and Historical Overview

Introduction

This chapter provides a description of resources and a summary 

overview of the history of Coltsville and the Samuel Colt family involved 

in the manufacturing enterprise he established in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Information for this chapter is primarily drawn from the nomination 

which resulted in the recent designation of the district as an NHL.

Firearms inventor Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814, the son of 

a textiles manufacturer, and died there in 1862. He obtained a patent 

for a revolver in England in 1835 and one in America in 1836. In 1836 

he established the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in Paterson, 

New Jersey. After producing approximately 5,000 guns, Colt was 

unable to attract government contracts for his revolver and he closed 

his Paterson operation in 1842. Colt returned to Hartford and was able 

to obtain government contracts during the Mexican American War. 

He temporarily established operations at Eli Whitney’s factory and then established Colt’s Patent 

Firearms Manufacturing Company. The company is still in operation today, although it has moved 

from the historic armory to West Hartford, Connecticut. The Colt revolver was a revolutionary 

weapon that changed military tactics by enabling the shooter to fire up to six shots without reloading. 

Colt firearms manufactured at the Hartford plant were used in every major American conflict from 

the Mexican War through the Vietnam War. 

Samuel Colt’s salesmanship was legendary, and the company grew due to his marketing skills. The 

name “Colt” became synonymous with the revolver. Harold Evans, in They Made America (2004), 

wrote that Samuel Colt “basically invented modern branding.” At the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition 

in London, Colt displayed his revolvers and demonstrated their interchangeable parts to highlight 

the “American System of Manufacturing.” 

In 1855, Samuel Colt built a model factory in Hartford that employed the most advanced 

manufacturing technology. He also created an industrial community surrounding the factory that 

included housing, a beer garden, social hall and library, and a church. The Colt armory’s distinctive 

blue onion dome is still a Hartford landmark, visible from Interstate-91. The original factory burned 

in 1864, but was rebuilt soon after. Many of the most important Coltsville structures are still extant. 

The Colt story is also the story of Elizabeth Colt, who owned the factory for 39 years after her 

husband’s death in 1862. Mrs. Colt built many of the structures in Coltsville and was the leading 

philanthropist and art patron in Hartford before she died in 1905. 

The history of Coltsville complements the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, a unit of 

the National Park System in Springfield, Massechuettes, 25 miles north of Hartford. Springfield 

Armory, a federal installation, produced shoulder arms while Colt made handguns. Many of the 

technological innovations developed in the early 19th century at the Springfield Armory were 

adopted by the Colt factory and elaborated in the private sector. Techniques developed in armsmaking were adapted to manufacture other metal products, such as sewing machines, typewriters, 

Samuel Colt. 

Portrait by Charles Loring, 1865. 

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum 

of Art. Bequest of Elizabeth Hart 

Jarvis Colt. 1905.8.
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bicycles, and automobiles. For its concentration of metalworking industries, the corridor between New Haven, 

Connecticut, and Windsor, Vermont, became known as the 

“Precision Valley.” 

Resources

Coltsville is a historic district that includes manufacturing 

facilities, worker housing, community buildings, and 

landscape features built by the Colt Patent Fire Arms 

Manufacturing Company, largely under the direction of 

Samuel Colt and his widow Elizabeth Colt. The development 

of Coltsville started in 1855 following Samuel Colt’s construction of a dike to protect Hartford’s South Meadows from 

periodic flooding by the Connecticut and Little Rivers. Parts 

of the Colt dike still exist, with Warwarme and Van Dyke 

Avenues running atop the historic dike. In the early 1940s, 

the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a new dike closer to 

the riverfront as part of an extensive flood-control project. 

The core of Coltsville is the manufacturing complex of the 

Colt Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company (Colt Fire 

Arms Company) constructed between 1855 and 1942. The 

factory complex evolved over the years, reflecting changing 

types of factory design and construction technologies. Ten 

buildings still stand at the Colt factory complex: the Foundry 

and Forge Shop from the original 1855 factory; the signature East Armory (with blue onion dome, 

which has become the premier symbol of Hartford’s industrial heritage), rebuilt in 1867; the South 

and North Armories, Machine Shop, Warehouse, Power Plant, and Garage built in 1916 for World 

War I armament effort; and the World War II Office Building (1942). The West Armory (1861) and infill 

buildings located between the East and West Armories were demolished in the mid-1930s and 1947. 

The surviving factory buildings enable the visitor to understand the evolution of the Colt Fire Arms 

factory as a major American small arms manufacturer from its establishment in 1855 until its decline 

following World War II. The building exteriors appear much as they did during the company’s 

heyday. The interiors have not housed substantial gun manufacturing operations since the 1950s (a 

limited amount of firearms design and testing occurred in the Machine Shop until 1993). The historic 

manufacturing machinery of the Colt Fire Arms Company no longer exists in the factory complex. It 

was removed and sold off over the years, mainly after World War II. 

An essential component of Coltsville is the Samuel Colt Home (Armsmear) National Historic 

Landmark. Armsmear was home to firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt and his wife Elizabeth, who 

oversaw the firearms company after his death in 1862 through 1901. 

Coltsville also includes 19 extant dwellings that were built for workers in the arms factory and 

related Colt enterprises, including 10 vernacular five- or six-family tenements (1856) and nine 

two-family “Potsdam cottages” (1859). Other structures contributing to the district include three 

Colt-owned manager houses on Wethersfield Avenue; the Victorian Gothic Episcopal Church of 

the Good Shepherd (1869) and its Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish House (1896); Colt Park, which 

was the original grounds of the Colt estate and was donated to the City of Hartford for public park 

purposes at the time of Elizabeth Colt’s death in 1905; and the Samuel Colt’s dike (1855). 

The Colt factory complex includes the East Armory, South Armory, and North Armory, each of 

which is physically connected, although they were built at different times. When the Colt Fire Arms 

Company started downsizing its operations at the historic factory after World War II, much of the 

industrial space became vacant. Some of it was subdivided for use by small businesses, artist studios, 

and a limited number of apartments. In 2003, a private developer Colt Gateway LLC (Homes for 

America Holdings, Inc.) acquired the historic industrial buildings and has been redeveloping them 

for commercial, residential, and office tenants. Colt Gateway rehabilitated some of the factory 

Elizabeth and Caldwell Colt. 

Portrait by Charles Loring, 1865. 

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum 

of Art. Bequest of Elizabeth Hart 

Jarvis Colt. 1905.9. 
12

buildings, in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards regarding character-defining 

features such as windows, roofs, and facades. In 2009, the developer Urban Smart Growth took 

controlling interest of the Colt Fire Arms factory complex. The former developer, Colt Gateway, 

built some market-rate apartments in the South Armory, and Urban Smart Growth plans to 

complete this housing construction in the South Armory as well as the East and North Armories. 

East Armory (1867), 55 Van Dyke Avenue—A 5-story gable-roofed building, this structure is 

perhaps the most visible and best-known part of the Colt factory complex. It was built on the 

foundations of the original 1855 brownstone East Armory after that building was destroyed by 

fire in 1864. The East Armory was always the main building for manufacturing Colt firearms.

Rising above the center of the East Armory is the complex’s signature onion-shaped dome, 

painted blue with gold stars (the original 1855 East Armory had a similar dome). On top of the 

dome is a gilded ball, above which is a gilded fiberglass replica of the original gilded wood 

Rampant Colt, a symbol of the company since Samuel Colt’s time. The original is on display at 

the Museum of Connecticut History. 

The interior framing of the East Armory has the original Phoenix-column posts supporting 

I-beams. In the center of the armory, the internal framing is supported by the vertical cast-iron 

beds and piston-rod guides of four Porter-Allen high speed steam engines that once drove the 

armory’s machine tools. The East Armory, which is currently vacant, was most recently used for 

commercial and light industrial space.

South Armory (1916), 75 Van Dyke Avenue and 140 Huyshope Avenue—A six storied structure, 

the South Armory is constructed of reinforced-concrete and is joined to the East Armory. This 

building was constructed by Aberthaw Construction Company and was originally used to 

manufacture machine guns. After being vacated by the Colt Fire Arms Company, it was used for 

commercial, light-industrial, artist studios, and residential purposes. Recently, the building was 

undergoing redevelopment, with some apartments being opened on the upper floors.

North Armory (1916), 7 Sequassen Street—Constructed of reinforced-concrete, this structure 

has five stories with a sawtooth-monitor roof. It was constructed during World War I, before the 

United States officially entered the hostilities. This building was also constructed by Aberthaw 

Construction Company, a leading firm in the construction of reinforced-concrete industrial 

Based on 1939 Factory Mutual Insurance Survey

Schematic of Colt Industrial Buildings

East Armory – 1867

Replacement for 1855 East Armory

Sawtooth-Roofed

Machine Shop

ca. 1916

South Armory

ca. 1916

Iron Foundry – 1855 (later 

polishing, tin shop, storage)

Steel Storage

ca. 1916 Punch Press Building

ca. 1916

Blacksmithing Shop – 1861 Forge Shop – 1861

Forge Shop – 1855 (later foundry, 

woodworking, storage)

Hardening and Heat

Treating ca. 1916

North Armory

ca. 1916

West Armory – 1861

Connector – 1861(partly replacing 1855 connector)

Office 

–1942

(on site of

1855 office)

Oil House

ca. 1916

Power Plant

ca. 1916

Warehouse 

ca. 1916

Garage

ca. 1916

Cafeteria/

Clubhouse

ca. 1916

Van Dyke Avenue

Huyshope Avenue

Sequassen Street

Vredendale Avenue

Schematic plan of Colt industrial 

buildings. Dark blue buildings are 

still standing; light blue buildings 

have been demolished. Some minor 

buildings are not shown. Bruce 

Clouette, based on 1939 Factory 

Mutual Insurance Survey. 
13

buildings. The North Armory was originally used for the production of gun barrels. After being 

vacated by the Colt Fire Arms Company, it was leased for commercial and light-industrial 

purposes, including storage. Currently, the building is vacant and is awaiting redevelopment. 

Forge Shop (1855), on the interior of the block bounded by Sequassen Street and Van Dyke and 

Huyshope Avenues—This original structure is a one-story gable-roofed building of randomashlar brownstone. The entire interior is open and unobstructed. Later uses of the building 

included woodworking and general storage. Now vacant, the Forge Shop was used mainly for 

storage after World War II.

Foundry (1855), on the interior of the block bounded by Sequassen Street and Van Dyke and 

Huyshope Avenues—The building’s interior is open and unobstructed. Originally equipped 

with cupola furnace for melting iron, it was later used for polishing operations and sheet-metal 

work. Like the Forge Shop, the Foundry, which was used mainly for storage after World War II, 

is vacant.

Machine Shop (1916), 170 Huyshope Avenue—This one-story structure is almost completely 

open, as it was when used for manufacturing. The sawtooth roof allows the interior of the 

building to be bathed in natural light. It originally housed machine gun production as well 

as a drafting room and offices. Between World War I and World War II, it was used for the 

production of Colt electrical equipment. Colt Fire Arms manufactured M-16s were produced 

here during the Vietnam War, after which the building was used for storage. In 2004, the 

Machine Shop was rehabilitated to become office space for an information technology company. 

It was rehabilitated in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the 

Treatment of Historic Properties. 

Office Building (1942), 17 Van Dyke Avenue—This brick-and-glass building is noteworthy for its 

streamlined Moderne style. It replaced the original Italianate Colt Fire Arms Company offices. It 

is currently vacant and awaiting redevelopment. 

Warehouse (1916), 36-80 Huyshope Avenue, 34 Sequassen Street—This two-story building 

originally accommodated storage, shipping, and receiving and contained a clubhouse and 

cafeteria. It has been rehabilitated to house the Capital Region Education Council’s (CREC) 

River Street Autism School and offices of community organizations, including the Coalition to 

Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak Neighborhood, Inc. 

Garage (1916), 53 Vredendale Avenue—The former garage is a one-story brick building currently 

used as school gymnasium space.

Power Plant (1916), 49 Vredendale Avenue—This single story structure continues to supply 

steam for heating the complex. The northeast corner features a tall circular brick smokestack 

with “COLT” spelled out vertically in black brick letters. 

Away from the factory complex at 80 Wethersfield Avenue is Armsmear, the Colt family home 

from its construction in 1857 until Elizabeth’s death in 1905. It has been a home for elderly women, 

originally widows of Episcopal ministers, since then. Armsmear was designated an NHL in 1966. 

The house has been altered and added to in order to meet its residential functions, although several 

rooms including the library retain decorative details dating to the occupancy of the Colt family. 

Armsmear is not open to the public, although occasional tours have been arranged. Armsmear 

is endowed by the Colt Bequest, Inc., which was established by Elizabeth Jarvis Colt. The Colt 

Bequest also owns and funds the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd and the Caldwell Colt 

Memorial House.

Colt worker houses dating from 1856 are located at 101, 111, 121, 133, and 141 Huyshope Avenue. Each 

of these five buildings is of the same design. They maintain their historic exterior appearance. Each 

building originally had six residential units for a total of 30 units. Some of these units were combined 

to accommodate larger families. Since their renovation into private condominiums in the 1980s, 25 

residential units are now found in these five buildings. The gable-roofed main block of the brick building 

is three stories high. The original room layout, corridors, and exterior access have been maintained. 
14

Additional Colt worker houses, also dating from 1856, are located at 60, 64, 68, 72, and 76 Van 

Block Avenue. Each of these five houses is of the same design. They maintain their historic exterior 

appearance. Each building originally had eight residential units for a total of 40 units. Some of these 

units were combined to accommodate larger families during the period of significance. Since their 

renovation into private condominiums during the 1980s, there have been 30 residential units in these 

five buildings. These brick buildings are four stories high. The basic room layout, corridors, and 

exterior access have been maintained. 

“Potsdam” Carpenter Gothic worker houses constructed in 1859, are located at 13, 17, 21, 23, 29, 33, 

37, 41, and 45 Curcombe Street. These nine cottages were built to house workers at Samuel Colt’s 

willow ware factory, which abutted these houses before it was demolished. Each cottage is a 

two-unit dwelling. Some of the Carpenter Gothic decoration has been removed from the “Potsdam” 

cottages, but their general setting and appearance are still maintained. These houses are under 

private ownership.

View of the Colt Fire Arms factory 

showing the original brownstone 

East Armory, destroyed by fire in 

1864, and the 1861 West Armory at 

the rear of the complex. 

Henry Barnard, Armsmear, 1866.

Interior of East Armory 

upper floor. During the latter 19th 

century, the Colt factory was using 

over 1,500 individual machines to 

manufacture firearms. From Tenth 

Census of the United States (1880): 

Manufactures, Vol. 2, 1883. 
15

The Church of the Good Shepherd (1869) and Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish House (1896) 

are located at 155 Wyllys Street, to the north of the factory complex. The Church of the Good 

Shepherd shares in the collective association with Samuel and Elizabeth Colt and the Colt Company 

because Elizabeth Colt built it to serve the spiritual needs of residents of the neighborhood and to 

memorialize Samuel Colt. The parish house was built to serve as a social and educational center for 

Coltsville as well as to be a memorial to Elizabeth Colt’s deceased son Caldwell. The parish house 

continues to serve the functions of a religious and community center that it was originally designed 

to meet over a century ago. The land where the parish house is located served as a baseball playing 

field during the 1870s and 1880s, with the Hartford Dark Blues, a charter member of the National 

League, playing there in 1876.

Manager Houses are located at 154, 180, and 184 Wethersfield Avenue. Samuel Colt’s brother 

James built an Italianate house (1856) at 154 Wethersfield Avenue, just south of Armsmear. It has 

been subdivided for apartments, but its exterior retains most of its original Italianate features. The 

Elizabeth Colt Rental Houses (1885) at 180 and 184 Wethersfield Avenue were built by Mrs. Colt as 

dwellings for senior managers at the armory and are now used as offices. These two brick Queen 

Anne-style houses were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Parkside 

Historic District in 1985.

Colt Park at 92 Wethersfield Avenue was originally the grounds of Armsmear. It now serves as a 

105-acre municipal park. The Armsmear grounds were laid out in the late 1850s by noted Boston 

landscape architects Robert Morris Copeland and Horace W.S. Cleveland. Armsmear had extensive 

formal gardens with statuary, urns, fountains, a summer pavilion, an ornamental pond, special 

plantings, formal drives, a deer park, cornfields, and grazing pastures. Colt’s greenhouses, 2,364 feet 

in length, were used for growing plants from all over the world, including pineapples, bananas, figs, 

and 13 varieties of grapes. These gardens served as a physical buffer between Armsmear and 

the factory village.

The City of Hartford has owned Colt Park since it was bequeathed by Elizabeth Colt’s estate in 

1905. Theodore Wirth, Hartford’s Superintendent of Parks and father of National Park Service 

Director Conrad Wirth (served 1951-1964), drew up a plan to transform the Armsmear gardens into 

a recreational park. By 1909, the City had removed some of the decorative gardens and created 

athletic fields, which are still in place. The reflecting pond and statuary remained until 1952, when 

both were removed and the area became a lawn.

The changes initiated by Theodore Wirth reflected the growing early 20th-century interest in active 

recreation. Colt Park became part of a Hartford “emerald necklace” that was created in a “rain of 

parks” around the turn-of-the-century. Inspired by Hartford native and landscape architecture 

pioneer Frederick Law Olmsted, the Hartford park system included Bushnell Park, Goodwin, Park, 

Elizabeth Park, Pope Park, Riverside Park, and Keney Park, several of which were designed by John 

Charles Olmsted and Charles Eliot (designer of Boston’s metropolitan park system).

The foremost landmark in Colt Park is the Colt Memorial Statue, sculpted by J. Massey Rhind and 

dedicated in 1906. The memorial includes two statues: one of Colt as a boy fashioning a revolver and 

the second as a mature man. Two bas reliefs depict Samuel Colt meeting Russian Czar Nicholas I and 

demonstrating his interchangeable parts of his revolver before the British House of Commons.

Contemporary recreational facilities include an oval running track, soccer and baseball fields, an 

outdoor hockey rink, a space-frame-roofed open pavilion intended for outdoors concerts, and a 

large public pool that dates from the 1930s. The park has four buildings, built between 1937 and 

1960, which have been used to support operations. Colt Park includes broad open areas of grass that 

are not dedicated to specific activities. The area closest to Armsmear, at the Wethersfield Avenue 

entrance, is lightly wooded. Despite these modern modifications, Colt Park, which still has the 

original Armsmear Carriage House and Gardner’s House (ca. 1860), continues its historic function 

of providing a large open green space with vistas between the Colt residence and the Colt Fire Arms 

factory. A private nonprofit organization, Hartford Botanical Garden, is working with the City on 

plans to develop a botanical garden at the western end of Colt Park. There are no intentions to make 

it a historic replica of the original Colt gardens.

Three of the innovative firearms 

manufacturing machines developed 

for the Colt Armory. A) multiplespindle vertical barrel boring 

machine; B) double-head facemilling machine; C) Lincoln miller. 

From Tenth Census of the United 

States (1880): Manufactures, 

Vol. 2, 1883. 

A

B

C
16

Map of Coltsville, 1861. Armsmear 

is on the left, on Wethersfield 

Avenue, and the Colt factory is on 

the right, on Van Dyke Avenue. The 

tree at the bottom is the historic 

Charter Oak, which fell near 

Coltsville in 1856. Henry Barnard, 

Armsmear, 1866.
17

Historical Overview of Samuel Colt and Coltsville

The Invention and Adoption of the Colt Revolver

Samuel Colt, though not the first person to conceive of a multiple-shot 

pistol using a revolving cylinder magazine, perfected the revolver to the 

point that it became a practical weapon.1 In 1836, he took out an American 

patent, supplemented by another patent three years later, which established 

an effective monopoly on revolvers until 1857. Colt manufactured his first 

revolver at Paterson, New Jersey, in 1836. That enterprise failed by 1842 

because of an insufficient market and a firearm design that was complicated 

and expensive to produce. Colt’s career as a gun manufacturer revived in 1847, 

when he received a contract from the U.S. Army to make revolvers for use in 

the Mexican War. Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers came to visit 

Samuel Colt in Hartford to suggest an improved revolver design. Colt fulfilled 

the first order by subcontracting with Eli Whitney’s factory in Hamden, 

Connecticut. This contract provided him with the reputation and resources to 

establish his own pistol factory, first in rented space (not extant) in Hartford 

in 1849 and at his own plant six years later.

Colt’s revolver first attained widespread notice when the Texas Rangers 

used it against Mexican soldiers in the Mexican War and American Indians 

during the 1840s. According to historian Walter Prescott Webb’s The Great 

Frontier, American settlers were able to occupy the Great Plains because of 

major technological innovations, with the revolver being “the first mechanical 

adaptation to the needs of the country.”2

 Historian Robert M. Utley wrote: 

“On the utility of Colt’s product all agreed: a weapon that enabled a horseman 

to fire six shots without reloading had revolutionary implications.”3

 The Colt 

revolver became so commonplace that lower-case “colt” “became a generic 

term for revolver.4

Although historians argue that violence in the West was not as pervasive as popular movies and 

television suggest, the indisputable fact is that the Colt Fire Arms Company sold hundreds of 

thousands of revolvers both to the military and civilians. Most men on the Western frontier between 

the 1850s and the 1880s carried firearms, often a Colt revolver. Those who owned Colt revolvers 

included John Brown, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickock, 

and Theodore Roosevelt. Mark Twain carried a Colt Navy revolver during his sojourn in Nevada 

mining camps, remarking in Roughing It (1861) that he had “worn the thing in deference to popular 

sentiment, and in order that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous, and a subject 

of remark.”5

 With so many Colt revolvers in circulation, they became an outsized symbol that has 

lasted into current times. Cultural historian John Cawelti, in The Six-Gun Mystique, wrote that the 

cowboy hero with his Colt six-gun “seemed to reaffirm the traditional image of masculine strength, 

honor, and moral violence.”6

Colt firearms have been used by the United States military in all conflicts since the Mexican War.

During the Civil War, the United States government purchased 378,000 revolvers and 114,000 rifles 

from the Colt Fire Arms Company, with contracts exceeding $4 million. Before the war started, Colt 

had sold “hundreds of thousands of his weapons to the South with a large discount,” according to 

the New York Times.7

Precision Manufacturing

Coltsville’s national importance in industrialization, during and beyond Samuel Colt’s lifetime, 

is recognized among historians of economic and technological change who show that the firearms 

industry led the way in pursuing interchangeability of parts and mechanization of virtually all 

aspects of manufacturing. Historian Nathan Rosenberg wrote that “the making of firearms occupied 

a position of decisive importance in the development of specialized, precision machinery,” and 

he identified the Colt Armory as the culmination of firearms manufacturing technology.8

 In his 

inventory of Connecticut’s industrial heritage (1981), Matthew W. Roth concluded:

In front of the Samuel Colt 

Memorial Statue, which depicts 

Colt in his prime, is a statue of 

Samuel Colt as a sailor boy devising 

the revolving bullet chamber of his 

pistol. J. Massey Rhind, sculptor, 

1905-1906. Colt Park, Hartford, 

Connecticut. James C. O’Connell, 

National Park Service.
18

Samuel Colt and his armory claim a place of central importance in the nation’s history.... Colt’s 

manufacturing processes constitute a crucial episode in the development of metalworking technology. 

The work begun at Colt’s in the 1850s under superintendent E. K. Root drew from prior experience in 

production of textile machinery, firearms and consumer hardware to create a synthesis of technique 

that provided the basis for metalworking innovations into the 20th century.9

Eugene S. Ferguson, a leading historian of American technology, called the Samuel Colt armory “a 

showpiece of mechanization.”10 The specialized machinery, especially Root’s drop presses, “found 

wide application in many other industries.” David Hounshell’s comprehensive account of American 

manufacturing, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing 

Technology in the United States, identified Samuel Colt’s armories in Hartford and London as “the 

prime showplaces of American manufacturing technology” of the era.11

Although it is difficult to isolate the achievements of individual companies and inventors in a prolonged 

process of gradual improvement, it is undeniable that Samuel Colt’s armory contributed significantly 

to advances in precision manufacturing. Revolver parts required close tolerances and free-moving 

parts. If they were not made to precise specification, they could jam or cause an explosion. Colt and 

his successors brought together a host of innovative manufacturing techniques that allowed the nearly 

complete mechanization and standardization of parts for firearms production. 

The foremost technological innovator at the Colt factory was Elisha K. Root, who managed the 

manufacturing processes at the plant between 1849 and his death in 1865. Root, who had originally 

developed advanced drop-forging techniques at the Collins ax factory in Collinsville, Connecticut, was 

the model for the inventive genius in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Root 

developed an automated drop forge that allowed machinery to do metalwork. His drop forge pressed 

a heavy weight onto a soft piece of hot iron that had been placed in a steel die, producing the shape of 

the part that was needed. Root used power-driven machines to perform the manufacturing functions 

at the Colt Fire Arms plant, creating a manufacturing process for making a revolver that had 450 

integrated steps.

12 Joseph Wickham Roe, in English and American Tool Builders, wrote of Elisha Root: 

“He invented the best form of drop hammer then in use, machines for boring, rifling, making cartridges, 

stock turning, splining, etc., and worked out the whole system of jigs, fixtures, tools, and gauges. The 

credit for the revolver belongs to Colt; for the way they were made, mainlyto Root.”13

The Colt Fire Arms Company was part of the precision manufacturing region in the Connecticut 

River Valley that developed the “American System of Manufacture,” which emphasized machine 

production of standardized parts and attracted great attention in Europe in the mid-19th century. 

The so-called “Precision Valley,” stretching from New Haven through Hartford in Connecticut to 

Springfield, Massachusetts, and Windsor, Vermont, contained the most advanced manufacturers 

in America during the 19th century and into the 20th century. Colt’s production and quality control 

techniques incorporated “armory practices” developed at the Springfield Armory, 25 miles to the 

north, and such private factories as Robbins and Lawrence in Windsor, Vermont; Simeon North 

in Middletown, Connecticut; and Eli Whitney in Hamden, Connecticut. The synergy between 

gun makers and machine tool builders who supplied them with manufacturing equipment had 

ramifications far beyond firearms.

Colt’s New Model Holster Pistol, 

.44 caliber, 1862. Wadsworth 

Atheneum Museum of Art. Bequest 

of Elizabeth Jarvis Colt. 1905.996.
19

The Colt Company played a major role in disseminating precision technology throughout 

American industry. Merritt Roe Smith is one of several historians of technology who demonstrate 

that technical innovations developed by firearms manufacturers, particularly the Colt Fire Arms 

Company, “spread to technically related industries and by the late 1850s could be found in factories 

making sewing machines, pocket watches, railroad equipment, wagons, hand tools. From these 

beginnings it was only a matter of time before the new technology found applications in the 

production of typewriters, agricultural implements, bicycles, gramophones, cameras, automobiles, 

and a host of products associated with the mass production industries of the twentieth century.”14

Hartford companies specialized in manufacturing sewing machines, typewriters, bicycles, automobiles, and machvine tools. The precision manufacturing technology developed there spread to 

factories across the country during the latter 19th century.

The National Park Service’s Connecticut River Valley Special Reconnaissance Study (1998) found that 

precision manufacturing created a distinctive, highly-advanced industrial region in the Connecticut 

River Valley:

Precision manufacturing is associated with a distinctive social and architectural landscape, paralleling 

but different from the complexes formed by the textile industry elsewhere in New England, or the heavy 

industry of Pennsylvania. The higher skill level and consequent higher earnings of many workers in the 

precision trades seems to have encouraged the development of more prosperous, stable communities. 

There was a prestige associated with arms-making, particularly in manufacturing the weapons used in 

national defense.15

Connecticut River Valley manufacturers constantly exchanged technological solutions and skilled 

workers moved from company to company. Developments in arms-making were adapted to 

manufacture other metal products. William Hosley, in Colt: The Making of an American Legend

(1996), wrote that the Connecticut River Valley’s evolution into a “Precision Valley” in the 

1850s occurred because of a “coalescence of creativity and capital that made the river towns of 

Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire what California’s Silicon Valley is today, 

the vanguard of an internationally significant, technology-based transformation.”16

The Colt armory became known as the acme of precision manufacturing, in part because the 

company gave tours and arranged for favorable publicity. Mark Twain visited the Colt armory in 1868 

and wrote an admiring account:

It comprises a great range of tall brick buildings, and on every floor is a dense wilderness of strange iron 

machines... a tangled forest of rods, bars, pulleys, wheels, and all the imaginable and unimaginable 

forms of mechanism... It must have required more brains to invent all those things than would serve to 

stock 50 Senates like ours.17

When the U.S. Census Bureau published a detailed report on the nation’s firearms industry in 1880, it 

featured the Colt armory as a leader in precision manufacturing and described and pictured several 

Elisha Root innovations, including drop forging (four-fold screw-drop & crank-drop), the edging or 

jigging machine, double turret lathe, and Colt chucking lathe.18

Another indicator of the Colt Company’s leading role in manufacturing technology was its choice by 

the Russian government as manufacturer of rifles in the late 1860s. Russia arranged to have 30,000 

Colt-Berdan rifles made at the Colt factory. They also used Colt’s Hartford factory as the model for 

the Czar’s own armory and tested their armory machinery in Hartford before shipping it to Russia.19

The business of arms manufacture fluctuates greatly, affected by external political forces. When 

the firearms business slowed at Colt’s, usually between wars, the company manufactured products 

other than firearms under its own brand name. It also manufactured products contracted for by 

other companies and rented space to other manufacturers. Often these businesses drew upon the 

skilled workforce and technological innovations of the Colt Fire Arms plant. Most touted their 

manufacturing address as “Colt’s Armory” in their advertisements, trading on the company’s 

reputation for reliability and precision manufacture. The prototype for the 18,000-part Paige 

typesetter, which Mark Twain lost a fortune investing in, was made at the Colt factory. Successful 

Colt-made products included Baxter Portable steam engines; Noark electrical equipment, such as 

switchboxes; Morrison and Charter Oak sewing machines; Universal printing presses; Thorne’s 

Right: At the time of the Civil 

War, the Colt factory used 450 

mechanized steps in the process 

of manufacturing a revolver. This 

revolver frame jigging machine was 

designed and patented by Samuel 

Colt to cut the exterior and interior 

surfaces of a frame. Photo ca. 1857. 

Museum of Connecticut History. 
20

typesetting machines; Federal adding machines; Charter Oak and Archimedean lawn mowers; 

Autosan commercial dishwashers; and Railway Alarm ticket punches for trains and streetcars. The 

Colt Plastics division, which operated between 1920 and 1955, manufactured firearm grips, electric 

plugs and outlets under the name “ColtRock,” buttons, costume jewelry, and other consumer 

products.20

One of the methods that Samuel Colt used to promote innovation and manage workflow was to 

provide “inside contractors” space in his factory. He would contract with these engineers to produce 

certain gun parts, but would allow them to take in business from other companies and employ 

their own workers. Many important manufacturing innovators got their start at the Colt Fire Arms 

factory and moved on to establish their own businesses. They included rifle-maker Christopher 

Spencer; machine-tool manufacturers Francis Pratt and Amos Whitney; George A. Fairfield, 

later Superintendent of the Weed Sewing Machine Company and the Hartford Machine Screw 

Company; steam engine innovator Charles B. Richards, who became chair of the Department of 

Mechanical Engineering at the Yale University Sheffield Scientific School; William Mason, master 

mechanic for the Winchester and Remington rifle companies; Henry Leland, automobile engineer 

and founder of the Cadillac and Lincoln automobile companies; William Gleason, founder of 

bevel gear industry and The Gleason Works, in Rochester, NY.

21 Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, a former 

master mechanic at the Colt plant, designed and manufactured a machine gun that was adopted by 

the French Army in 1897.22 Matthew Roth, in Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and 

Industrial Sites, summarizes by saying that “Graduate apprentices or workmen from Colt and Pratt 

& Whitney worked throughout Connecticut’s metals industries, bringing with them knowledge of 

machine construction in such areas as bearings, clutches, drive linkages, gearing and lubrication.”23

In a broader sense, the Colt Fire Arms Company illustrates the major phases of development of 

urban industrial districts, as described in the “American Labor History Draft Theme Study.” The 

most relevant section of this theme study, “American Manufacture: Sites of Production and 

Conflict,” explains that urban industrial development proceeded through the following stages: 

the early innovations in precision metal-working and standardized parts production, the rise of 

diversified urban manufacturing centers in the mid-19th century, the development of a militaryindustrial complex in World War II, and deindustrialization of the late 20th century.24

Samuel Colt’s Business Achievements

In addition to the contributions to the “American System of Manufacture” made by his company, 

Samuel Colt was notable for his organizational and marketing achievements. He made skillful use of 

the patent system to consolidate a monopoly position for 20 years. He demonstrated the axiom that 

inventions only become adopted when they are successfully marketed. Colt created a powerful brand 

name out of his own surname, making “Colt” nearly synonymous with the revolver.25 Felicia Johnson 

Deyrup, in Arms Makers of the Connecticut Valley, wrote, that more than any other arms maker, 

Samuel Colt realized the importance of stimulating demand through aggressive sales promotion.26

He was an indefatigable and sometimes unscrupulous promoter of his wares, marshaling his 

colorful personality, appearances before government officials, and major exhibitions in an all-out 

effort to create a brand name to market his revolvers. Combined with a high-quality product and 

his company’s demonstrated ability to produce it in quantity, Colt’s promotional activities assured 

success. Like other 19th-century entrepreneurs, Colt made ample use of testimonials, such as those 

from Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers and the crowned heads of Europe and Asia. Colt 

These workers are using a 

deburring machine to remove 

burrs and sharp edges from the 

components of pistols. 

Photo ca. 1857. Museum of 

Connecticut History. 
21

regularly sent specially engraved presentation versions of his revolvers to government officials, 

military heroes, titled nobility, and anyone else who might praise his wares and influence their 

purchase. After his death, the Colt Fire Arms Company continued this practice. 

Samuel Colt generated a great deal of favorable publicity when he participated in the 1851 Crystal 

Palace Exhibition in London, where his revolvers awed visitors. He addressed the British Parliament 

and the British Institute of Civil Engineers, delivering a paper entitled “On the Application of 

Machinery to the Manufacture of Rotating Chambered Breech Firearms and the Peculiarities 

of the Arms.” These appearances cemented Colt’s reputation, and that of the “American System 

of Manufacture” in England. After a Parliamentary board toured Connecticut Valley factories, 

including Colt’s, in 1853, the British government furnished its armory at Enfield almost entirely 

with American machinery. From 1853 to 1857, Colt established one of the first significant American 

factories abroad, operating a large factory in London, which supplied the British military during 

the Crimean War. He formed license agreements abroad, which forestalled potential copyists and 

brought in revenue that otherwise would have been lost. Colt traveled widely in Europe in the 

1850s, cultivating contacts in the governments of all major countries, including Russia, where he 

was presented to Czar Nicholas I and became a major provider of arms to the Russian government 

during the Crimean War. He also provided firearms to their adversaries, the Brittish and theTurks, 

prefiguring the rise of America’s international weapons industry.

Samuel Colt’s pioneering efforts at marketing resulted from the need to generate business during 

the lulls between warfare and military contracts. Using his flair for publicity, Colt targeted individual 

consumers and arranged to have descriptions of his revolver and factory widely published in 

newspapers and magazines. One of his bolder strokes was to commission artist George Catlin 

to produce a series of ten paintings and six mass-market lithographic prints illustrating Catlin’s 

adventures in the West using Colt’s firearms. Colt even used the exotic architectural features of his 

mansion Armsmear and the blue onion dome surmounting his factory to help brand his enterprise. 

Because of its symbolic value, Elizabeth Colt had the blue dome rebuilt after the East Armory 

burned in 1864. Betsy Hunter Bradley, in The Works: The Industrial Architecture of the United States,

called Colt’s blue onion dome “one of the most distinctive interpretations of the industrial building 

tower.... The presence of the tower can best be accounted for by the pragmatism and profit motive 

that drove the design of industrial buildings.”27 At a time when mass marketing and advertising were 

in their infant stages, Samuel Colt led the way by making his exploits virtually synonymous with the 

firearms he was selling. 

Catlin the Artist Shooting Buffalos 

with Colt’s Revolving Pistol.

George Catlin, 1855.

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of 

Art. The Ella Gallup Summer and 

Mary Catlin Summer Collection 

Fund, 2005.2.1.

Samuel Colt was a master of 

public relations. In 1855, he hired 

noted artist George Catlin to paint 

pictures of himself on Western 

adventures using a Colt revolver. 
22

Subsequent Development of the Colt Fire Arms Company

The company Samuel Colt founded survived his premature death in 1862 and a disastrous fire in 

1864, during the height of Civil War production. It retained its leadership in manufacturing, small 

arms innovation, and business development through World War II. As the controlling stockholder 

Elizabeth Colt was a rare example of a businesswoman who owned a major American industrial 

company during the late 19th century. She hired talented managers to run the company, including 

her brother, Richard Jarvis, who served as company president, and general managers General 

William B. Franklin and John Henry Hall. In 1901, four years before her death, Elizabeth Colt sold the 

privately-held Colt Fire Arms Company to a New York limited partnership because there were no 

suitable heirs to carry on management.

Under General Franklin, Colt Fire Arms converted cap-and-ball revolvers to use metallic cartridges. 

The company produced the famous Colt .45 (Single Action Army Model 1873), manufacturing over 

350,000 of these revolvers, popularly called “Peacemakers,” between 1873 and 1941. General Franklin 

was a West Point graduate who had served with the Corps of Topographical Engineers, supervised 

construction of the U.S. Capitol dome (1859-1861), and commanded Union troops in the Civil War. 

He supervised the reconstruction of the Colt factory after much of it burned in 1864.

Just as Colt manufacturing techniques adapted “armory practice” developed at the Springfield 

Armory for the production of civilian handguns, General Franklin’s reconstruction of the Colt 

complex represented a transfer of advanced building technology from the government to the private 

sector. Franklin utilized rolled-iron Phoenix columns and I-beams to support shallow-arched brick 

floor structures. Pioneered in Britain, this expensive and still experimental technique of making 

buildings “fireproof” had been heretofore almost entirely confined to U.S. government buildings. 

Franklin had some experience with brick and iron fireproof construction through his work on 

Treasury Department projects before the war. The new East Armory in Hartford represented the 

third private sector application on this side of the Atlantic and the largest by far.28 The Colt Fire 

Isometric drawing of firearms 

complex, showing the plant at its 

height during World War I. Colt 

Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing 

Company, 1919.
23

Arms factory was one of the first to abandon the hollow square layout for the H form in order to 

obtain more natural light on the factory floor. The armory’s new layout also shortened the lines of 

travel between operations and provided separate work rooms.29

The factory reconstruction entailed installation of Porter-Allen engines to run the machinery. These 

were the first large scale direct-connected high-speed engines in the country. Originally seen as a 

radical departure, these engines entered widespread use between the 1870s and the first decade of 

the 20th century.30

In the decades after Samuel Colt’s death, the Colt Fire Arms Company maintained a competitive 

edge in small arms manufacture by pursuing a deliberate business strategy to stress innovation, both 

by internal product development and by attracting outside inventors, and to develop close ties with 

the U.S. military, particularly with the Springfield Armory. The company hosted regular visits from 

Springfield Armory officers inspecting ordnance work being done for the federal government.31

During this period, the Army Ordnance Department designed rifles and cannon, but turned to the 

private sector for handguns and machine guns. By remaining in the forefront in development of both 

types of weapons, Colt Fire Arms retained a strong position in dealing with the Army. 

The Colt factory’s reputation for technological innovation helped to attract weapons pioneers such 

as Richard Jordan Gatling and John M. Browning to manufacture their machine guns. Although 

they operated independently as inventors, they chose the Colt Company for machining, testing, and 

mass production of their designs. With most inventions, the key to their realization is not simply 

an innovative design; it has to be manufactured at a superior level of quality, in large quantities, at a 

reasonable cost. Colt Fire Arms was not the only company manufacturing innovative small arms in 

the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but gun designers such as Gatling and Browning believed it 

was the largest and most technologically advanced.

When the U.S. Army officially adopted the Gatling gun, the world’s first effective machine gun, in 

1866, inventor Richard Gatling arranged for the Colt Company to manufacture the weapon. Gatling 

located his small research company in the Colt Fire Arms factory, which made 25 models of the 

Gatling gun until it became obsolete around 1911.

Similarly, when John M. Browning, a prolific mechanical genius who accumulated 128 patents on 

80 different firearms, undertook to develop a machine gun, he went to Colt Fire Arms because 

the company had been manufacturing Gatling guns and he believed it had the most extensive 

experience dealing with the federal government.32 Although Browning designed weapons that 

were manufactured by other companies, he maintained space for research and development at 

the Colt plant because of its advanced capacity for designing and producing firearms.33 Browning 

had a particularly close relationship with the long-time Colt Fire Arms production manager Fred 

Moore. Colt historian Ellsworth S. Grant summarizes by saying that Browning, “the foremost living 

perfector of firearms,” had “his longest and last association with Colt’s—one that extended over a 

period of nearly thirty years.”34

Colt Fire Arms and Browning originally sold the Colt Model 1895 Automatic Machine Gun, the first 

fully automatic weapon purchased by the United States military, to the U.S. Navy, which used it in 

the Spanish-American War and the Chinese Boxer Rebellion.35 The U.S. Army started purchasing 

this model a decade later. As for the Colt .45 Browning Automatic Pistol, Colt Fire Arms convinced 

the U.S. Army to adopt the automatic pistol as its official sidearm in 1911. Because of its reliability, the 

Army used this legendary handgun (M1911) through the Korean War.36

World War I brought a surge of prosperity to the Colt Fire Arms Company. The company supplied 

.45 caliber automatic Browning pistols to Russia and Great Britain both openly and secretly through 

Canada before the United States entered the war in 1917. As a result, sales grew from $2.2 million in 

1914 to $10 million in 1916, while employment increased from 1,056 to 2,400. The company had its 

most profitable year in 1916, when it netted $6,346,000 in earnings.37

During the war the machine gun became the defining weapon of trench warfare and the source of 

much of its horror. Historian John Ellis, in The Social History of the Machine Gun, attributes the 

industrialization of warfare that occurred with World War I to the development of the machine gun. 
24

He argues that Americans, in contrast to Europeans, who began the war with a romantic devotion 

to individual initiative and only grudgingly adopted the machine gun and the tactical adjustments 

it demanded, developed this lethal technology because of their “faith in the unlimited potential 

of machines.” This attitude was prevalent at the Colt Fire Arms Company, where its long-standing 

experience manufacturing the machine guns of Gatling and Browning placed it in a leadership 

position during the war.38

Despite the intellectual predisposition of Americans to accept the machine gun and the leading 

role of American inventors, backed by the Colt Company, in developing it, the U.S. Army entered 

World War I woefully ill-equipped with these weapons. When the U.S. declared war in 1917 the Army 

possessed only 1,300 relatively modern machine guns, and the first American troops arriving on the 

Western Front had to be equipped with French armament, much of it of inferior quality.39

As one of the only two armories in the United States capable of producing machine guns, with 

the Army’s Rock Island Arsenal, the Colt Fire Arms Company became vital in the nation’s forced 

military buildup. In December 1916, the U.S. Government contracted with Colt Fire Arms to supply 

4,000 Maxim-Vickers machine guns, based on the model originally designed by Hiram S. Maxim 

and used by the British Army in World War I. Soon after the declaration of war, John Browning set 

up shop at the Colt Fire Arms factory, completing the design of a heavy machine gun and a light 

automatic rifle, both .30 caliber, and making constant improvements in manufacturing techniques. 

The first of Browning’s automatic rifles (BARs) reached the front in July 1918. At the close of the war, 

Browning successfully tested the .50 caliber machine gun, which was an essential infantry weapon 

through World War II and the Korean War.

During World War I, Colt Fire Arms manufactured 487,700 Browning automatic pistols (96% of 

those weapons manufactured), 151,700 Colt revolvers (50% of all Colt revolvers), 10,000 .30 caliber 

Browning Automatic Rifles (17% of all Browning Automatic Rifles), and 13,000 Maxim-Vickers 

machine guns (100% of all Maxim-Vickers machine guns) for the U.S. Army and allied armies. The 

U.S. Army was responsible for procuring automatic pistols, revolvers, and machine guns for both 

the Navy and the Marine Corps during World War I and World War II.

40 In addition, the Colt 

Company completed 41,000 machine guns, 43,000 automatic rifles, and 150,000 M1911 pistols under 

contract with several other arms manufacturers.41 With Colt Fire Arms patents, production drawings, 

machine tools, and management supervision, Westinghouse manufactured the M1917 Browning 

machine gun, Winchester made the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, and Remington produced 

the Colt M1911 pistol. Satisfactory fulfillment of these contracts entailed the transfer of innumerable 

examples of unwritten “shop practice” that expanded on mechanical drawings, a demanding 

process. Since no single corporation had all the necessary production capacity, this kind of enforced 

sharing was critical to the war effort.42

To fill the extraordinary demands of the war, the Colt plant underwent a major expansion in 1916, 

adding the South and North Armories, the Machine Shop, and several smaller structures. This 

expansion effectively doubled the capacity of the plant. The World War I additions were constructed 

by Aberthaw Construction Company, an innovator in the construction of concrete factories. The 

Colt Fire Arms Company’s wartime employment peaked at 10,000 in 1918, when the company’s 

revenues reached $32 million. Over the course of the war it shipped a total of $66 million worth of 

munitions and earned $21.5 million.44

Wartime experience confirmed the rapidly increasing importance of military aircraft. The Colt 

company, characteristically, was determined to retain its leadership position in this promising 

technology. During the war the Colt Fire Arms Company converted some of the Maxim-Vickers 

machine guns to use on airplanes, as it was the only weapon that could be synchronized to fire 

between propeller blades. Following the characteristic course of weapons development, the success 

of this offensive weapon created the demand to counterbalance it, and the U.S. Army and Colt Fire 

Arms placed a high priority on developing an anti-aircraft gun to fill the gap between the machine 

gun and artillery. In 1921, John Browning successfully tested a .37 mm anti-aircraft cannon, his last 

invention, at the Colt factory. Testifying to the unrivaled capabilities of the Colt armory and his 

special relationship with it when the U.S. Army contracted to develop the cannon, Browning told 

his colleague Fred Moore, “Well, we’d better make this model at Colt. It’s getting too big for our 

shop out West. I’ll go up to Hartford with you from Washington, and we can start the drawing.”42
25

According to the U.S. Ordnance Department official history, after Browning’s death, “Colt’s Patent 

Fire Arms Company pushed forward work upon a .37 mm.”47

Between the wars, when military orders were intermittent and small, the Colt Company maintained 

and updated the technological capacity to research, develop, and produce advanced weapons, 

whether they were handguns or machine guns. The company improved the ballistic and cooling 

characteristics of the .30 mm Browning machine guns and adapted them for use in airplanes as well 

as improving and standardizing the .50 mm Browning machine gun.48 With employment reduced to 

a base of about 1,000, Colt continued manufacturing firearms for the military and private markets. 

It was the sole manufacturer of Government-model Browning automatic pistols between the 

wars, making approximately 150,000. The company also was the sole manufacturer of Thompson 

submachine guns (designed by John T. Thompson) for the military and police forces. Prohibition-era 

gangsters gave the Thompson considerable notoriety, and in 1934 the federal government severely 

restricted civilian ownership of “tommy” guns and other fully automatic weapons. Colt Fire Arms 

also continued to manufacture the Browning Automatic Rifle for police use and export. 

Despite meager arms purchases by the U.S. Army and the onset of economic depression, the Colt 

Fire Arms Company weathered the 1930s, and even maintained a dividend (though achieved in part 

by drawing on accumulated surpluses). It also endured the devastating Connecticut River flood of 

1936, after which a new dike was built. Company executives continued the tradition of paternalism, 

apparently retaining older employees and keeping more employees on the payroll than were strictly 

needed, though a strike in 1934 eroded these traditions.

Determined to avoid a repeat of the humiliating experience of World War I, when the U.S. was 

unable to properly arm its soldiers, the Ordnance Department expended some of its limited 

resources to study and plan for wartime production. Colt Fire Arms Company was a key partner 

in this effort. As the owner of Browning military weapons patents, it worked with the Ordnance 

Department to improve the ballistic, cooling, and rate of-fire characteristics of .30 and .50 caliber 

Browning machine guns.49 Under contract with the Ordnance Department, the Colt Fire Arms 

Company made production studies of these guns and helped prepare descriptions of their 

manufacture.50

During World War II, another major buildup occurred at the Colt Fire Arms Company, and the plant 

became an important component of the “Arsenal of Democracy,” which has been described in the 

“National Historic Landmark Draft Theme Study: World War II and the American Home Front.” The 

theme study finds that “Most historians agree that World War II was won as surely on the American 

home front as it was on the battlefield.”51 The remarkable ability to manufacture vast amounts of 

weapons and military supplies gave the United States and its allies a decisive edge in the war. The 

“Home Front” Theme Study has identified “places associated with production,” including ordnance 

plants, as property types worthy of preservation and interpretation.

The Colt Fire Arms Company was the only company that had maintained an active capability 

to make machine guns during the interwar years. It held the patents on the .30 mm and .50 mm 

Browning machine guns, which had been adopted as standard by the U.S. armed services.52 The .50 

caliber was especially valuable because it could be converted to tank, aircraft, or anti-aircraft use. 

Colt Fire Arms was the sole existing source for the .37 mm Browning anti-aircraft gun. The classic 

Colt M1911 pistol was also the standard military pistol, though handguns received a lower priority 

in wartime production. In the fall of 1939, during the so-called “phony war,” the British had agreed 

to finance an expansion of the Colt plant to produce Browning machine guns, but these plans 

were overtaken by the swift German successes in the West in the spring of 1940.53 Alarmed by this 

“Blitzkrieg,” the U.S. in July 1940 appropriated $50 million for small arms and ammunition, and Colt 

Fire Arms received a portion of this order.54

In 1939, the Colt Fire Arms Company plant employed 2,600 workers. Employment grew to 7,000 

in 1941 and peaked at 16,000 in 1944, when satellite Colt plants were opened in the Hartford area. 

Colt’s production in World War II included 575,600 Colt .45 caliber automatic Browning pistols 

(31% of those manufactured), 38,000 .30 caliber Browning aircraft machine guns (5%), and 240,600 

.50 caliber Browning machine guns (13%).55 These weapons continued to be used by the United 

States Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, and the armies of other countries for decades after World 
26

War II. The company’s production of 37-mm guns, both aircraft and anti-aircraft, was essential. 

Under intense pressure from Ordnance officers, Colt Fire Arms produced more than 6,000 of these 

machine guns for mounting on U.S. warplanes in the desperate year of 1942.56

The U.S. Army licensed the patents for Colt-model automatic handguns, rifles, and machine guns 

and contracted with several other large corporations to manufacture them because the demand 

was greater than the Colt Fire Arms Company could fill on its own. The Colt Fire Arms Company, 

serving as a workshop for firearms design and production, provided the original designs and 

machine tools to other corporations. According to the New York Times, “The century-old Colt 

Company not only is producing the world’s fastest machine gun in larger quantities and greater 

quality but is assisting half a dozen other potential producers to get underway.”57 General Motors 

received a contract to manufacture .50 caliber Browning machine guns.58 Other companies included 

General Motors subsidiaries, Frigidaire, AC Spark Plug, Saginaw Gear Works, and Brown Light 

Works, as well as Buffalo Arms Company, Ithaca Gun Company, Kelsey Hays Wheel, Singer, Savage 

Arms Company, and Union Switch & Signal Company.

The Colt Fire Arms Company received the Army-Navy “E” award for production, but this honor 

concealed underlying problems. Despite initial advantages such as the long-standing partnership 

with the Army and long-standing experience in production, the company’s performance in World 

War II was somewhat disappointing, especially when compared to its brilliant achievements in the 

previous war. Even while the Colt Fire Arms Company was producing weapons at a prodigious rate 

to support the war effort, it contrived to lose money beginning in 1943. The subsequent decline was 

foreshadowed by these wartime troubles.

It appears that the deeply rooted corporate culture that had brought success to Colt Fire Arms 

Company in the past began to work to its detriment. Traditional paternalism became inadequate in 

a time of increasing labor militancy, and the company had difficulty managing its greatly expanded 

workforce. Some of the manufacturing equipment and techniques tended to be outmoded, and the 

Colt Fire Arms customary stress on precision workmanship became increasingly out of place in a 

war that emphasized quantity and shortcuts.59 Newcomers to weapons manufacture, unencumbered 

by accumulated precedent, were actually often at an advantage.60

By 1946, military orders had ceased and the number of Colt Fire Arms Company employees plunged 

below 1,000. Demolition of some Colt armory buildings began in 1947. The company struggled and 

was bought out by the conglomerate Penn-Texas in 1955. The main plant moved to West Hartford, 

but production of the Colt AR-15 and M-16 automatic rifles, introduced in 1960 and used by the 

American military since the Vietnam War, took place in the Machine Shop of the historic plant. The 

Colt Fire Arms Company finally abandoned its remaining operations at the Coltsville plant in 1993 

and now all of its operations are headquartered in West Hartford. The Hartford area maintains a 

connection to the great age of precision manufacturing through the presence of the Colt Fire Arms 

Company and many independent machine shops. Most prominent among today’s heirs of precision 

manufacturing is Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, which was spawned by Pratt & Whitney Machine Tools, 

which in turn grew out of the Colt Fire Arms factory.

The Creation of Coltsville

For nearly a century, the Colt Fire Arms Company was a national leader in small arms production 

and precision manufacturing. The industrial district known as Coltsville that Samuel Colt developed 

around his factory was an important example of a mid-19th-century planned urban industrial district. 

It expresses his assumptions about proper industrial design and is noteworthy because it represents 

a stage between the largely spontaneous villages that grew up around New England’s water-powered 

textile mills and the (much less common) examples of totally planned industrial towns, such as 

Lowell, Massachusetts, and, later, Pullman, Illinois. The model industrial community created by 

Samuel and Elizabeth Colt included housing, recreation, and spiritual comfort. Coltsville’s layout and 

individual features revealed the paternalistic and hierarchical attitudes that guided them, though the 

Colts’ brand of paternalism was relatively benign. The Colts did not project stringent social control 

and moral supervision, mainly because the Colt Company was geographically integrated with the rest 

of Hartford and provided housing for only a fraction of its employees.61
27

Earlier in the 19th century, hundreds of textile mill communities had sprung up around water 

privileges in New England. In most of them there was no pre-existing settlement, so the entrepreneurs 

had to provide housing for their employees. Unlike them, Coltsville was developed as a neighborhood 

within an existing city. It represented the “metropolitan path to industrialization” described in the 

“American Labor History Draft Theme Study.” This study has identified the old walking cities that 

were involved in diverse industrial production as meriting attention, particularly since many of these 

industrial districts have disappeared due to urban renewal and deindustrialization.62 In contrast to the 

single-industry communities that arose in many parts of the country, particularly the New England 

textile towns, the “metropolitan” industrial centers produced numerous, synergistic industries. 

Hartford offers a good example of this: its first major industry—gun-making—spun off manufacturers 

of machine tools, sewing machines, typewriters, bicycles, automobiles, and aircraft engines.

In the early 1850s, Samuel Colt, after manufacturing his pistols in space leased from others, decided 

to create his own industrial settlement in the South Meadows section of Hartford, a sparsely 

developed area prone to flooding from the nearby Little River and Connecticut River. Since the 

South Meadows had not been considered buildable, Colt was able to purchase the land at a low 

price. He set about building a large, steam-powered factory, housing and social facilities for workers, 

and his own mansion Armsmear. 

In order to make South Meadows secure for development, Colt built a dike along the bank of 

the Connecticut River. The dike and the first armory buildings were completed in 1855. Colt laid 

out a grid of streets, using romanticized names that recalled Hartford’s origins. Street names 

commemorated the Native American occupancy and the Dutch presence, when the Connecticut 

River formed the eastern boundary of New Netherlands. Coltsville was connected to the rest of 

Hartford by the first omnibus and streetcar lines in the city. It was an integral part of Hartford, 

helping to spawn factories across the city, including Pratt & Whitney machine tools, Pope bicycles 

and automobiles, Royal typewriters, Underwood typewriters, and Atlantic screws. With its precision 

manufacturing and the emerging insurance industry, Hartford was one of the wealthiest American 

cities per capita by the early 20th century.

Soon after the armory was completed, Samuel Colt added 20 six/eight-family houses (10 of which 

survive) on Huyshope and Van Block Avenues to attract and retain skilled workers in a competitive 

labor market. Initially machinists, toolmakers, and other craftsmen lived there, but by the 1880s the 

blocks were primarily occupied by the families of unskilled laborers. The more affluent employees 

found better housing opportunities elsewhere in the city.63 Colt’s housing for workers was 

dissimilar from the boardinghouses built in New England textile cities like Lowell and Lawrence, 

Massachusetts, which were originally designed to exert paternalistic social control over the single 

young farm girls, who were the original employees. The growth of Colt’s enterprise meant that only 

a small proportion of employees could be housed on company property. Samuel Colt’s paternalistic 

vision of a self-contained industrial community gradually faded as Hartford became a complex 

industrial city with a wide array of employers.

View of “Potsdam” cottages 

and willow ware factory (no 

longer extant) on Curcombe 

Street. The cottages were named 

after “Potsdam” because they 

were designed in a German style 

that might appeal to willow 

ware workers Colt was recruiting 

from Germany. Henry Barnard, 

Armsmear, 1866. 

“Potsdam” cottages today. Some 

of the other “Potsdam” cottages 

now have modern siding. James C. 

O’Connell, National Park Service.
28

 An integral element of Samuel Colt’s industrial community was the Colt Willow Ware 

Manufacturing Company, established in 1859 to make use of the willow trees that were planted 

to stabilize the earthworks of the dike. This subsidiary employed about 120 people, who made 

baskets, wicker furniture, picture frames, and similar items from willow trees. Colt hoped that the 

wives and children of his pistol makers would find useful employment at the willow ware factory. 

The “Potsdam” cottages (nine of the original 10 survive) were designed in a “Carpenter Gothic” 

style reminiscent of Germanic styles to make them attractive to the German willow workers Colt 

recruited to staff the factory. The willow ware complex also included several eighteen-family 

tenements, which have been demolished. The willow ware factory building itself was never rebuilt 

after a fire in 1873. Even before the willow ware operation was discontinued, armory workers 

occupied some of the cottages.64

Samuel Colt believed that it was important to create a stable community for his workers, a 

community which expressed the social hierarchy of owners, managers, and workers. It was 

especially important to provide amenities for the skilled workers he was trying to attract, many of 

whom were recruited from Germany. He provided varied recreational and educational facilities for 

his employees.65 Charter Oak Hall (no longer extant) contained reading rooms, classes in art and 

music, and an auditorium for lectures, entertainments, and dances. Colt created a German beer 

garden and sponsored militia companies—Colt’s Armory Guards and Colt’s Rifle Regiment. The 

Colt Band was a fixture at parades and civic events in Hartford through World War II. The company 

also sponsored baseball teams, an Armory Glee Club, an Armory Dramatic Association, and 

Mechanics Balls. On July 4th, Colt sponsored fireworks displays and picnics on the grounds of his 

estate, which later became Colt Park. On the Colt-owned property now occupied by the Caldwell 

Colt Memorial Parish House, the Hartford Dark Blues baseball team played as a charter member of 

the National League in 1876. The baseball field, which was used during the 1870s, included one of the 

nation’s first wooden grandstands. Colt factory workers were often spectators at these early major 

league baseball games.

Mrs. Elizabeth Colt, the daughter of a prominent Episcopal minister, endowed the Coltsville 

neighborhood with an Episcopal church, combining paternalism with her sustained effort to 

perpetuate a carefully controlled version of her husband’s memory. The Episcopalian denomination 

was the church of many of Hartford’s leading families. Colt historian Ellsworth S. Grant observes 

that “To be an Episcopalian was to reach the pinnacle of social success ... closer to those who 

composed the power structure of the city and to their wives who dictated social behavior, like 

Mrs. Samuel Colt.”66 Her Church of the Good Shepherd reinforced the social status of the owners 

while expressing the importance of religion as an influence in an industrial community. As Grant 

notes, “As long as Mrs. Colt lived it was a sensible idea for Colt executives to belong to the Church 

of the Good Shepherd.”67 Despite the elite status of the Episcopal Church, the Church of the 

Good Shepherd was attended by a cross-section of company executives and workers, growing 

continuously from its founding in the 1860s until well into the 20th century.

68 As further expression 

of her concern about the religious and social welfare of working people, Mrs. Colt built the Caldwell 

Colt Memorial Parish House to provide such amenities as a kindergarten, Sunday School, library, 

sewing room, cooking school, gymnasium, pool tables, and bowling alleys (in addition to serving 

the purposes of commemorating her son).69 The church and parish house are located two blocks 

northwest of the factory complex.

Samuel and Elizabeth Colt built an elaborate mansion several blocks from the industrial complex 

in 1857 and called it Armsmear. Samuel Colt himself was responsible for the overall design, working 

with local architect Octavius Jordan. Armsmear featured Italianate and Moorish decoration.70

Next to P.T. Barnum’s Iranistan in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Colt’s Armsmear was considered the 

“most exotic house... incorporating some Eastern features” anywhere in America before the Civil 

War.71 After Samuel’s death, Armsmear was home to Elizabeth Colt and her brother Richard Jarvis, 

who served as president of the company until it was sold to New York investors in 1901. Samuel 

and Elizabeth’s son Caldwell Colt also lived there, though his contributions to the company’s 

management were small. A second large Italianate villa house on the grounds of Armsmear was built 

to house Samuel Colt’s brother James. James Colt was Samuel’s close associate in his early dealings. 

James Colt left the company when the two brothers fell out in 1859. During the 1880s Elizabeth Colt 

built four houses, two of which remain, on the southern edge of the estate, fronting on Wethersfield 

Avenue, for armory managers and their families and the rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd. 

In 1876, the Hartford Dark Blues 

baseball team became a charter 

member of the National League. 

After one season, the franchise 

moved to Brooklyn and later 

became known as the Dodgers. 

This close-up of the “Bird’s-Eye 

View” shows the playing field on 

the left and the grandstand on the 

right. From The City of Hartford, 

Connecticut, 1877. Connecticut 

Historical Society.
29

As originally designed, the Colt estate grounds, now Colt Park, illustrated the hierarchical nature of 

the Coltsville community, as conceived by Samuel and Elizabeth Colt. The estate grounds, designed 

by landscape architecture pioneers Robert Morris Copeland and H.W. S. Cleveland, originally 

included ponds, outdoor sculpture, a huge greenhouse, and gardens and bowers. In the typical New 

England textile village, the owners and managers lived on a hill overlooking the factory. Samuel 

Colt adopted and expanded upon this layout, placing the real and symbolic separation of the estate 

grounds between his ornate home and the factory that was the source of his wealth. Other company 

managers lived on the hill, from where they were able to oversee the industrial operation in both 

senses of the word. The Colts’ elaborate landscaped buffer zone was reminiscent of Leo Marx’s 

insight about the “machine in the garden,” in which early American industrialists attempted to 

mitigate the negative impacts of manufacturing (in a deliberate effort to avoid the British experience 

of industrial squalor) by placing their factories in attractive natural surroundings.

“Bird’s-Eye View” of Coltsville. 

Note the ball field where 

the Hartford Dark Blues are 

playing, next to the Church of 

the Good Shepherd. From The 

City of Hartford, Connecticut, 

1877. Connecticut Historical 

Society.
30

By the time of Elizabeth Colt’s death in 1905, it was a widespread belief that open space relieved the 

harmful effects of urban industrial life, so she bequeathed her estate’s grounds to the city as a public 

park. Today, athletic fields and structures have replaced Colt garden structures and plantings, yet the 

contemporary Colt Park still represents the open space that was between Armsmear and the other 

splendid residences on Wethersfield Avenue and the industrial zone. The Armsmear gardener’s 

cottage and a large stable still stand behind the main house in Colt Park. 

The “American Labor History Draft Theme Study” describes the importance of understanding 

the work and social lives of manufacturing workers. At Coltsville, the skilled workforce was 

relatively well paid and the Colt Company provided such benefits as housing and social activities 

for workers. According to historian David Nelson, gun makers held a leading place in the ranks of 

industrial workers, especially compared with workers in iron and steel, textiles, and shoe-making: 

“precision-machinery manufacturers had established what even by twentieth-century standards were 

reasonably attractive and healthy working conditions.”72 Felicia Deyrup called armory workers like 

those at Colt Fire Arms a “favored class.”73 The highly skilled workforce developed at the Colt Fire 

Arms Company factory helped create the labor pool that staffed many other industrial enterprises in 

Hartford during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The “American Labor History Draft Theme Study” also describes how immigrants and minorities 

found occupational niches in certain industries. Notably, Germans and Irish in the 19th century and 

African-Americans from the South in the 20th found job opportunities in Hartford at the Colt Fire 

Arms Company plant. The factory relied on Irish immigrants to serve as skilled blacksmiths as well 

as unskilled labor. So many Irish men were employed by Colt that in 1859 a second Catholic parish 

was founded in the south end of the city.74 When African-Americans migrated from the South to 

Hartford during World War II, one of their primary destinations was a job in the Colt Fire Arms 

Company factory.75

The institutions and memorials that Elizabeth Colt built in honor of her husband and her son 

Caldwell were important elements of Coltsville. Elizabeth Colt was devoted to celebrating her 

husband as one of America’s industrial giants. The Colts felt that the Hartford community, Samuel’s 

home town, had been hostile to his enterprises, and they wanted to trumpet his success. In pious 

Victorian fashion, Elizabeth Colt memorialized her husband’s accomplishments by commissioning 

the Church of the Good Shepherd (1869). Designed by architect Edward Tuckerman Potter, who 

also designed the Mark Twain House in Hartford, the church has stonework depicting revolvers and 

bullet moulds and a stained-glass window portraying Samuel Colt as Joseph serving as the Egyptian 

pharaoh’s steward. Mrs. Colt later commissioned the Colt Memorial Statue (1905) in Colt Park, 

which depicts the rise of Colt from a cabin boy whittling a model revolver to a confident titan of 

industry. After her son Caldwell died in Florida in 1894, Mrs. Colt commissioned Edward Tuckerman 

Potter to design the Caldwell Colt Memorial House (1896) as a parish and community hall.

The Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish 

House still serves as a community 

center. It was designed by Edward 

Tuckerman Potter in 1896. 

James C. O’Connell, 

National Park Service.
31

The memorials also represent Elizabeth Colt’s role as a leading philanthropist. During his lifetime, 

Samuel Colt contributed to the establishment of Hartford Hospital and proposed to establish a 

technical college in Hartford, but he died before his vision was realized. After Samuel Colt died, 

Elizabeth Colt became a civic leader in Hartford, organizing and providing financial support for 

many social welfare causes and leading an 1878 effort to consolidate all local charities into a single 

coordinated charity. Elizabeth Colt served as President of the Soldiers Aid Society during the Civil 

War, the Hartford Arts Society, The Union for Home Work (a pioneering social service agency), and 

the Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames. In her final bequest, she donated Armsmear to become 

a retirement home for women; the grounds of the estate for a public park; and her art collection to 

the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art along with funds to build a museum wing to house her 

collection. When she died, the Hartford Courant wrote of Elizabeth Colt: “What she has done for 

this community is incalculable ... She was the First Woman of Connecticut.” 

After Elizabeth Colt’s death, the Colt Fire Arms Company, then owned by a limited partnership, 

continued to sponsor social activities for workers, including the Colt Band, sports teams, and 

company picnics. Nevertheless, corporate paternalism was in decline. Coltsville became more 

integrated into the economy and urban landscape of Greater Hartford, exemplifying the 

“metropolitan path to industrialization” described in the “American Labor History Draft Theme 

Study.” The focus of Coltsville was the factory complex, which underwent a massive expansion 

during World War I to support the arms buildup. Up through World War II, the Colt Fire Arms 

Company remained one of the nation’s leading small arms producers and was a vital contributor to 

United States military efforts. The historic factory complex remains: the site of innovative armsmaking and American precision manufacturing in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries.

Armsmear, south elevation, 

ca. 1870. Museum of Connecticut 

History.
32

 Endnotes 1 Elisha Collier, of Boston, designed a flintlock revolver with 

a rotating chamber breech in 1818, but it had to be rotated 

manually. Colt developed a cocking hammer, which caused 

the chamber to rotate when it was cocked. Harold Evans, 

They Made America, From The Steam Engine to the Search 

Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators (New York: Little, 

Brown and Company, 2004), p. 61. 

2

Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Frontier (Austin, TX: 

University of Texas Press, 1964), p. 245.

3

Robert M. Utley, Frontiersman in Blue: The United States 

Army and the Indian, 1866-1890 (New York: Macmillan 

Publishing Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 26-27. 

4

Robert Hendrickson, The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word 

and Phrase Origins, 3rd ed. (New York: Checkmark Books, 

2004), p. 166.

5

Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes: 

Violence on the Frontier (Berkeley, CA: University of 

California Press, 1984), p. 5.

6

John Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mystique, 2nd ed. (Bowling 

Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1984), 

p. 86.

7 “A Revolving Patriot,” New York Times, April 26, 1861. 8 Nathan Rosenberg, Perspectives in Technology (New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 19.

9

Matthew W. Roth, Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic 

Engineering and Industrial Sites (Washington, D.C.: 

Society for Industrial Archeology and Historic American 

Engineering Record, 1981), p. 50.

 10 Eugene S. Ferguson, “History and Historiography,” 

Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System 

of Manufactures, ed. Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post 

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), pp. 

3-4. Ferguson explained that there was a distinction between 

“interchangeable parts” and “mechanized production.” 

Industry did not achieve complete interchangeability of 

parts until the 20th century. Ferguson explained: “Most 

of the parts of a Colt revolver were interchangeable, but 

the hand fitting in its final assembly was inevitable, given 

the practical impossibility of making at any reasonable cost 

parts that would fit very snugly and at the same time be 

interchangeable.” Ferguson, p. 4. 

 11 David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass 

Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology 

in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 1984), p. 49. Hounshell points out that “uniformity 

[or interchangeability of parts] would be an effect, not an 

absolute goal, of mechanization” and that Samuel Colt 

did not attain complete mechanization of manufacturing 

processes, since that goal was not cost-effective. Despite 

the fact that Colt workers filed and fitted certain gun 

parts during the manufacturing process, Hounsell argues 

that “The lack of interchangeability of revolver parts by 

no means precludes characterizing Colt’s production 

technology as embodying the American system of arms 

manufacture.” 

12 Jack Kelly, “’The Most Perfect Weapon,’” Invention & 

Technology, Fall, 2004, p. 25. Historian Donald R. Hoke has 

written that “Root probably was not the first to conceive of 

the system as a system, or to engage in system thinking, but 

he was probably one of the earliest to do so and one of the 

most influential,” Donald R. Hoke, Ingenious Yankees: The 

Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private 

Sector (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 122.

13 Joseph Wickham Roe, English and American Tool Builders

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916), p. 169.

 14

Merritt Roe Smith, “Army Ordinance and the ‘American 

System’ of Manufacturing, 1815-1861,” Military Enterprise 

and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American 

Experience, ed. Merritt Roe Smith, (Cambridge, MA: MIT

Press, 1985), p. 78. According to David Hounshell, the Singer 

Sewing Machine Company adopted the American system 

of manufactures piecemeal between 1863 and 1873 “only 

after a Yankee mechanic and a local machinist [Andrew R. 

Arnold and Lebbeus B. Miller] were hired who knew a little 

about how things were done at the Colt Armory.” David 

Hounshell, “The System: Theory and Practice,” Mayr and 

Post, p. 136. 

15 National Park Service, Connecticut River Valley Special 

Resource Reconnaissance Study (Boston: National Park 

Service Northeast Region, 1998), p. 31.

16 William Hosley, Colt: The Making of an American Legend

(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 

1996), p. 34. Business historian Michael Best provides 

a case study describing how the Connecticut Valley 

precision manufacturing district was the cradle of the 

“American System of Manufacture.” Michael Best, The 

New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 29-45.

17 Quoted in Ellsworth S. Grant, Yankee Dreamers and 

Doers: The Story of Connecticut Manufacturing (Hartford: 

Connecticut Historical Society & Fenwick Productions, 

1974), p. 245. Mark Twain lived in Hartford between 1874 and 

1891. Here he raised a family and wrote such classics as Tom 

Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, Life 

on the Mississippi, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s 

Court. The Twain house, a 19-room Victorian gingerbread 

mansion, is part of the Mark Twain Museum Center. 

18 Charles H. Fitch, “Report on the Manufactures of 

Interchangeable Mechanism,” U.S. Census Office, Report 

of the Manufactures of the United States at the Tenth Census, 

Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1883, pp. 

611-645. 

19 Joseph Bradley, Guns for the Tsar (DeKalb, IL: University of 

Northern Illinois Press, 1990), passim.

20 Colt Fire Arms Company manufactured Baxter portable 

steam engines between 1868 and 1898. Louis C. Hunter, 

A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780-

1930–Volume Two: Steam Power (Charlottesville, VA: 

University Press of Virginia, 1985), pp. 494-496. Colt Fire 

Arms Company manufactured “Universal” printing presses 

between 1873 and 1902. Fred Williams, “The Great Colt’s 

Armory War!,” Type and Press, Winter, 1983.

21 Roe, pp. 174-179.

22 Geoffrey Perret, A Country Made by War (New York: 

Random House, 1989), p. 306. 

23 Roth, p. xxi.

24 “American Labor History Draft Theme Study,” pp. 41-74. 

25 News accounts and popular literature are full of stories 

emphasizing the “Colt” brand name when mentioning 

revolvers. The New York Times May 15, 1865 account of 

the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis by 

Union troops described how Davis “yielded promptly to 

the persuasions of Colt’s revolvers, without compelling the 

men to fire.” The far-flung presence of Colt revolvers and 

Brownings is described in Mikhail Bulgakov’s Russian novel 

set in the Russian Civil War, The White Guard: “The Colt 

Automatic that had belonged to Nai-Turs and Alyosha’s 

Browning were thoroughly greased with engine oil and 

paraffin.” Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard (New York: 

McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1971), p. 194.
33

26 Felicia Johnson Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecticut 

Valley: A Regional Study of the Economic Development of 

the Arms Industry, 1798-1870 (York, PA: George Shumway, 

Publisher, 1970), p. 124.

27 Betsy Hunter Bradley, The Works: The Industrial Architecture 

of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 

1999), p. 119.

28 Mark Snell, From First to Last: The Life of Major General 

William B. Franklin (New York: Fordham University 

Press, 2002), p. 339. Sara Wermiel, The Fireproof Building: 

Technology and Public Safety in the Nineteenth-Century 

American City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 2000), pp. 154-156. It should be emphasized that this 

fireproof technology only made these buildings somewhat 

more fire retardant.

29 Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the New 

Factory System in the United States, 1880-1920 (Madison, WI: 

University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 21.

30 Hunter, pp. 450-472. 

31 A sampling of official U.S. Army Ordnance Department staff 

assignments published in the New York Times between 1890 

and World War 

I mentions that Army officers stationed 

at the Springfield Armory were making inspections at the 

Colt factory. New York Times, June 23, 1891; August 6, 1892; 

August 21, 1898; October 26, 1898; January 29, 1903; April 2, 

1904; February 9, 1908; December 31, 1910; March 20, 1912; 

February 26, 1913.

32 John Browning [Jr.] and Curt Gentry, John M. Browning, 

American Gunmaker (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & 

Company, 1964, p. 150. Before working with Colt Fire Arms, 

John Browning worked with Winchester Repeating Arms on 

designing repeating rifles and shotguns. In the 20th century, 

he also maintained a relationship with the Belgian arms 

manufacturer Fabrique National. 

33 Ibid., pp. 117, 169, 196.

34 Ellsworth Grant, The Colt Legacy: The Colt Armory in 

Hartford, 1855-1980 (Providence, RI: Mowbray Company, 

1982), pp. 94, 97. 

35 George B. Johnson and Hans Bert Lockhoven, International 

Armament, Vol. II (Cologne, Germany: International Small 

Arms Publishers, 1965), pp. 289, 412.

36 Ibid., p. 162.

37 Grant, pp. 221-222.

38 John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (Baltimore: 

The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 23.

39 Roger Ford, The Grim Reaper (New York: Sarpedon, 1996), 

p. 71.

40 U.S. Navy Department Bureau of Ordnance, Navy Ordnance 

Activities. World War 

I, 1917-1918 (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 71; Buford Rowland 

and William B. Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World 

War II (Washington, DC: Government Printing office, 1953), 

p. 332.

41 Charles W. Clawson, Colt .45 Service Pistols: Models of 1911 

and 1911A1 (n.p.: Charles W. Clawson, 1991), p. 212; Ian V. 

Hogg, and John Walter, Pistols of the World, 4th edition 

(Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2004), pp. 76, 292; Dolf 

L. Goldsmith, The Grand Old Lady of No Man’s Land: 

The Vickers Machinegun (Coburn, ON: Collector Grade 

Publications, 1994), pp. 225-226; James L. Ballou, Rock in 

a Hard Place: The Browning Automatic Rifle (Coburn, ON: 

Collector Grade Publications, 2000), p. 62. According an 

article “Vickers Gun Wins Board’s Award,” New York Times, 

Nov. 11, 1916, “The Colt company has been selling practically 

its entire output of Vickers guns to the Entente Allies since 

the war began.”

42 Johnson and Lockhoven, pp. 289, 440.

43 According to an article “Colts to Increase Plant,” New 

York Times, June 30, 1915, the Colt Fire Arms Company 

“has decided to double its plant to fill huge war orders for 

machine guns.” Amy E. Slaton, Reinforced Concrete and the 

Modernization of American Building, 1900-1930 (Baltimore: 

The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 160-161.

44 Grant, p. 103.

45 Ibid., p. 94.

46 Browning and Gentry, p. 212.

47 Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and 

Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Planning 

Munitions for War (Washington, DC: Department of the 

Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1955), p. 407.

48 Ibid., p. 178.

4 9 Ibid., p. 423. 

50 Harry C. Thomson and Lida Mayo, The United States Army 

in World War II: The Technical Services; The Ordnance 

Department: Procurement and Supply (Washington, DC: U.S.

Army Center of Military History, 1960), pp. 26, 156, 179.

51 National Historic Landmarks Survey, “National Historic 

Landmark Draft Theme Study: World War II and the 

American Home Front” (Washington, DC: National Park 

Service, 2004), p. 2.

52 Johnson and Lockhoven, Vol. II, p. 433.

53 Thomson and Mayo, p. 159. 

54 Ibid., p. 27.

55 Clawson, p. 344; Goldsmith, p. 407; Ballou, pp. 55-68.

56 Thomson and Mayo, p. 80.

57 “Huge New Industry for Machine Guns,” New York Times, 

March 7, 1941. 

58 Eliot Janeway, The Struggle for Survival: A Chronicle of 

Economic Mobilization in World War II (New Haven: Yale 

University Press, 1951), pp. 213-214.

59 Grant, p. 159. Ellsworth Grant’s book mentioned that the 

Colt Fire Arms Company was in the “incipient stage of its 

downfall” by 1943. Grant, p. 162.

60 Thomson and Mayo, pp. 78, 80, 181.

61 Industrial paternalism was strongest in communities that 

were small and isolated and less so in urban settings. 

Margaret Crawford, Building the Workingman’s Paradise: 

The Design of American Company Towns (New York: Verso, 

1995), p. 31.

62 “American Labor History Draft Theme Study,” pp. 18, 49.

63 Social composition of the housing derived from listing in the 

1880 manuscript census schedules for Hartford, microfilm, 

Connecticut State Library.

64 City directory listings in 1869, for example, include four 

willow-ware workers and five pistol makers, as well as four 

laborers and a silver-plater who probably worked at the 

armory as well. Geer’s Hartford City Directory for 1869–70 

(Hartford: Elihu Geer, 1869).

65 Jack Rohan, Yankee Arms Maker (New York: Harper & 

Brothers, 1935), p. 184.

66 Grant, p. 83. 

67 Ibid., p. 83. 
34

68 The Church of the Good Shepherd parish began as a mission 

of St. John’s Episcopal Church on Main Street and operated 

out of Charter Oak Hall until the church was completed in 

1869. Church records indicate a broad range of members 

from the Colt family and General William B. Franklin to 

pistol makers, printers, lumbermen, bookkeepers, and 

painters living in company housing to other persons living in 

the general area. “Church of the Good Shepherd Baptisms, 

Burials, Communicants and Marriages, 1865-1876,” pp. 14-22. 

Episcopal Church Records, Connecticut Diocese Archives, 

Hartford, CT. The occupations of members have been 

identified by cross-referencing with the 1865 Hartford City 

Directory. Parish records show that the number of parish 

families grew steadily from 150 families in 1869 to 375 families 

in 1924.

69 Hosley, p. 209.

70 Ibid., p. 138.

 71 Clive Aslett, The American Country House (New Haven: Yale 

University Press, 1990), p. 30.

72 David Nelson, “The American System and the American 

Worker,” eds. Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post, Yankee 

Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufacturers

(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1981), p. 173. 

Nelson argued that the “American system” produced a new, 

more highly organized labor force and conditions of work: 

“The manufacturer who introduced the American system 

installed more than a series of machines and a system of 

machine production; he also made fundamental decisions 

regarding the treatment of his labor force, his relations with 

his subordinates, and, ultimately, his conception of social 

progress.” Nelson, p. 173.

73 Deyrup, pp. 163-164.

74 Bruce Clouette, “Getting Their Share: The Irish and Italian 

Immigrants of Hartford, Connecticut,” unpublished Ph.D. 

diss., University of Connecticut, 1992.

75 “Semi-Skilled Negroes Find More Jobs Open,” New York 

Times, May 3, 1942.

 76 Hartford Courant, August 24, 1905.
35

Chapter 3: Designation Analysis

Introduction

For a determination to be made as to whether a resource should 

be considered for potential designation as a unit of the national 

park system, analyses are conducted based on criteria established 

by Congress in Title III of Public Law 105-39 and in accordance with 

NPS Management Policies 2006. To be eligible for consideration, an 

area must: 

(1) possess nationally significant natural or cultural resources; 

(2) be a suitable addition to the system; 

(3) be a feasible addition to the system; and 

(4) require direct NPS management instead of alternative 

protection by other public agencies or the private sector.

This chapter evaluates the Coltsville Historic District and applies 

the criteria for designation as a potential unit of the national park 

system cited above.

National Significance Analysis

NPS Management Policies 2006 provide that a resource will be considered nationally significant if it 

meets all of the following criteria: 

(1) is an outstanding example of a particular type of resource; 

(2) possesses exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the natural or cultural themes 

of our nation’s heritage; 

(3) offers superlative opportunities for public enjoyment, or for scientific study; and 

(4) retains a high degree of integrity as a true, accurate, and relatively unspoiled example of a resource.

The national significance of cultural resources is evaluated by applying the National Historic 

Landmark (NHL) criteria contained in 36 Code of Federal Regulations Part 65. National significance 

is ascribed to districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects that possess exceptional value or quality 

in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States in history, architecture, archeology, 

engineering and culture, and that possess a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, 

materials, workmanship, feeling and association, and that:

are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to, and are identified with, or 

that outstandingly represent, the broad national patterns of United States history and from which 

an understanding and appreciation of those patterns may be gained; or

are associated importantly with the lives of persons nationally significant in the history of the 

United States; or

Colt East Armory blue onion dome. 

James C. O’Connell, National Park 

Service.
36

represent some great idea or ideal of the American people; or

embody the distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type specimen exceptionally valuable 

for the study of a period, style or method of construction, or that represent a significant, distinctive 

and exceptional entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

are composed of integral parts of the environment not sufficiently significant by reason of historical 

association or artistic merit to warrant individual recognition but collectively compose an entity of 

exceptional historical or artistic significance, or outstandingly commemorate or illustrate a way of 

life or culture; or

have yielded or may be likely to yield information of major scientific importance by revealing 

new cultures, or by shedding light upon periods of occupation over large areas of the United 

States. Such sites are those which have yielded, or which may reasonably be expected to yield, data 

affecting theories, concepts and ideas to a major degree.

When evaluating national significance in congressionally authorized special resource studies, 

resources that have been designated as NHLs are considered to already have been determined to 

be nationally significant and require no further analysis. Resources associated with the Coltsville 

Historic District have been designated by the Secretary of the Interior as an NHL for reasons 

identified in the NHL nomination. Chapter 2 of this report contains much of that information. These 

resources, therefore, meet the criterion for national significance. 

The study team confirmed that the resources of the district retain integrity. The Coltsville Historic 

District National Historic Landmark nomination states that Coltsville retains a high degree of 

integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The location, 

setting, feeling, and association of Coltsville maintain their integrity since the site is the same one 

laid out by Samuel Colt in 1855 in Hartford’s South Hartford. The Coltsville Historic District is a 

cohesive cultural landscape that reflects the industrial social hierarchy, with the Colt family and other 

managers residing in mansions on the hill overlooking the Colt factory and the homes of workers. 

Importantly, Coltsville maintains its association with Samuel Colt, Elizabeth Colt, and the Colt Fire 

Arms Company which they founded and developed. The factory complex, their residence, worker 

housing, and church and social institutions remain to interpret those associations.

The design, materials, and workmanship of the factory complex evolved over the years, reflecting 

the evolution of factory design and construction technologies through the latter 19th and early 20th 

centuries. The Coltsville buildings that remain from the period of significance (1855-1945) maintain 

their integrity of materials and workmanship, enabling the visitor to understand the evolution of the 

Colt Fire Arms factory. The exteriors appear very much as they did during the period of significance. 

The interiors have not housed substantial gun manufacturing operations for over 40 years (a limited 

amount of firearms design occurred in the Machine Shop until 1993). In recent decades, much 

of the space was subdivided for use by small businesses, artist studios, and a limited number of 

apartments. Between 2003 and 2008, a developer of the factory complex transformed the Machine 

Shop into office space, the brick warehouse into school and office use, and part of the South Armory 

into apartments. These buildings have been rehabilitated in compliance with the Secretary of the 

Interior’s Standards regarding character-defining features such as windows, roofs, and facades. 

The Italianate exterior of Armsmear has been modified, but it still retains much of its original 

architectural form and features. The interior has been altered to create apartments, but three public 

rooms remain relatively unchanged and retain much of the original decoration. Colt Park, which had 

contained the gardens of the Colt family before being bequeathed to the City of Hartford in 1905, 

now is used mainly for athletic fields, but the sense of the estate grounds can still be appreciated. 

Ten multi-family worker tenements and nine “Potsdam” cottages remain. The worker houses are 

relatively unaltered from their historic appearance. The exteriors of the James Colt House and 

the Elizabeth Colt Rental Houses at 180 and 184 Wethersfield Avenue retain most of their original 

Italianate features. The exterior and interior of the Gothic Revival Church of the Good Shepherd 

and its Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish House appear very much as they did when they were built. 
37

Suitability Analysis

According to National Park Service Management Policies 2006, an area is considered suitable for 

addition to the national park system if it represents a natural or cultural resource type that is not 

already adequately represented in the national park system, or is not comparably represented and 

protected for public enjoyment by other federal agencies; tribal, state or local governments; or the 

private sector. 

It is important to note that the suitability analysis is not limited, simply, to whether resources are 

represented in the national park system, but the analysis extends to similar resources protected 

by other entities. Adequacy of representation is determined on a case-by-case basis by comparing 

the proposed area to other units in the national park system for differences or similarities in the 

character, quality, quantity, or combination of resource values. The comparative analysis also 

addresses rarity of resources; interpretive and educational potential; and similar resources already 

protected in the national park system or in other public or private ownership. The comparison 

results in a determination of whether the proposed new area would expand, enhance, or duplicate 

resource-protection or visitor-use opportunities found in other comparably managed areas.

In evaluating the suitability of cultural resources within or outside the national park system, the 

Service uses its “Thematic Framework” (1994) for history and prehistory. The framework is an outline 

of major themes and concepts that help to conceptualize American history. It is used to assist in 

the identification of cultural resources that embody America’s past and to describe and analyze the 

Colt East Armory. Jet Lowe, Historic 

American Engineering Record, 

National Park Service.
38

multiple layers of history encapsulated within each resource. The thematic framework reflects an 

interdisciplinary, less compartmentalized approach to American history through eight concepts that 

encompass the multi-faceted and interrelated nature of human experience. The concepts are: 

(1) Peopling Places; 

(2) Creating Social Institutions; 

(3) Expressing Cultural Values; 

(4) Shaping the Political Landscape; 

(5) Developing the American Economy; 

(6) Expanding Science and Technology; 

(7) Transforming the Environment; 

(8) Changing Role of the United States in the World Community. 

Coltsville relates to three themes from the NPS Thematic Framework—Developing the American 

Economy, Expanding Science and Technology, and the Changing Role of the United States in the World 

Community. 

Developing the American Economy—This theme reflects the ways Americans have worked, 

including slavery, servitude, and non-wage, as well as paid labor. It also reflects the ways they have 

materially sustained themselves by the processes of extraction, agriculture, production, distribution, 

and consumption of goods and services. Topics that help define this theme include extraction 

and production, distribution and consumption, workers and work culture, labor organizations 

and protests, exchange and trade, and economic theory. These topics are commonly applicable to 

historic industrial districts such as the Coltsville Historic District. 

Developing the American Economy: Production—This topic is illustrated by the pivotal role 

the Colt Fire Arms Company played in advancing large-scale American manufacturing. 

Developing the American Economy: Distribution and Consumption—This topic is illustrated 

by the manner in which Colt handguns became important consumer products, particularly in 

the West. The company’s marketing and distribution techniques played an important role in 

developing the American consumer society. 

Developing the American Economy: Workers and Work Culture—This topic is reflected 

in Coltsville’s ability to tell the stories of skilled precision manufacturing workers and portray 

their social life through worker housing and community institutions. Coltsville epitomizes the 

paternalistic nature of corporate worker policies during this period.

View of Colt Fire Arms complex, 

looking southeast. The worker 

housing is visible on the right. 

From Asher & Adams Pictorial 

Album of American Industry, 1876.
39

Expanding Science and Technology—This theme focuses on science, which is modern 

civilization’s way of organizing and conceptualizing knowledge about the world and the universe 

beyond. This is done through the physical sciences, the social sciences, and medicine. Technology 

is the application of human ingenuity to modification of the environment in both modern and 

traditional cultures. Topics that help define this theme include experimentation and invention, 

technological applications, scientific thought and theory, and effects on lifestyle and health.

Expanding Science and Technology: Experimentation and Invention, and Technological 

Applications—These themes are illustrated by the Colt Fire Arms Company’s inventions 

and technologically-advanced products and the development and applications of precision 

manufacturing processes that influenced other industries during the second half of the 19th 

century. 

Changing Role of the United States in the World Community—This theme explores 

diplomacy, trade, cultural exchange, security and defense, expansionism—and, at times, 

imperialism. Topics that help define this theme include international relations, commerce, 

expansionism and imperialism, and immigration and emigration policies.

Changing Role of the United States in the World Community: Commerce—The Colt Fire 

Arms Company relates to this topic. The “American System of Manufacture,” as articulated 

by Samuel Colt at London’s Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 and implemented at his Hartford 

Armory, provided the basis for subsequent industrial expansion and allowed the United 

States to become a world power. Samuel Colt’s London factory (1853) was one of the first 

American manufacturing companies to locate abroad. This theme is also illustrated by arms 

development and production by the Colt Fire Arms Company during World War I and World 

War II, when the factory was a foundational element of America’s global military-industrial 

complex, providing weapons to allied countries such as Great Britain and Russia. 

Units of the National Park System and Sites Managed by Others Related to 

the Themes

Within the national park system several units interpret resources related to the themes of Developing 

the American Economy, Expanding Science and Technology and the Changing Role of the United 

States in the World Community. The most comparable units are Lowell National Historical Park, 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Edison National Historical Park, and Paterson Great Falls 

National Historical Park. 

Lowell National Historical Park (Massachusetts) tells the story of the development of 

American industrialization as it occurred in the textile industry. Lowell emphasizes the topics of 

Developing the American Economy: Production; Workers and Work Culture, as one of the first and 

most influential planned industrial communities in America. Lowell interprets mass production, 

Yankee working girls, immigrants, corporate paternalism, union organization, working and 

living conditions, and the consequences of deindustrialization. Lowell also interprets the theme 

Expanding Science and Technology: Experimentation and Invention by interpreting the role of 

industrial waterpower and the mechanical innovations that made the mass production of textiles 

possible.

Springfield Armory National Historic Site (Massachusetts) preserves and interprets the 

federally owned and operated Springfield Armory (1794-1968). Springfield Armory interprets 

the industrial processes that produced military firearms. Its exhibit features the Benton Small 

Arms Collection. Springfield Armory was a federal installation producing military armaments, 

therefore it does not provide an opportunity for understanding the entrepreneurial production 

and marketing of privately-owned weapons for mass consumption.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (West Virginia) includes the federal armory at 

Harpers Ferry (1799-1861), which was an early innovator in using interchangeable parts for the 

manufacture of rifles. Today, only the ruins remain of the armory. 

The pistons that ran the machinery 

of the Colt East Armory can still be 

seen in the lobby beneath the blue 

onion dome. Jet Lowe, Historic 

American Engineering Record, 

National Park Service.
40

Edison National Historical Park (New Jersey) preserves and interprets the home and factory, 

as well as the inventions of Thomas Alva Edison, including the phonograph, movie camera, 

and alkaline storage battery. It also provides public understanding of how inventions were 

manufactured and commercialized by his company for mass distribution. 

Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park (New Jersey) is in the process of being 

established pursuant to the recently enacted Omnibus Lands Management Act (Public Law 111-11). 

The Great Falls Historic District, of which the park is a part, is an industrial complex begun by 

Alexander Hamilton and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufacturers in 1791. It is significant 

as the first American attempt to harness the power of a major river for a planned industrial city. 

Multiple industries in Paterson included textile, silk and railroad locomotive manufacturing 

among others. Samuel Colt produced his first revolvers, between 1836 and 1841 in Paterson, New 

Jersey. The building used by Colt in Paterson exists as a ruin (it was subject to arson in the 1980s).

Other units of the national park system that interpret one or more of these themes include Saugus 

Iron Works National Historic Site (Massachusetts) and Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site 

(Massachusetts). Both units interpret the history of various phases of iron manufacturing. Rosie the 

Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park (California) interprets the role of heavy 

industries, particularly shipyards, in supplying the war effort during World War II. It commemorates 

the contributions of women in the World War II workforce. 

Several National Heritage Areas interpret industrial themes. The John H. Chafee Blackstone 

River Valley National Heritage Corridor (Massachusetts & Rhode Island) is one of the earliest 

industrialized areas of the country. It includes Slater Mill, an NHL in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 

which was the first textile mill in America. Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area (Pennsylvania) 

interprets the steel industry in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The Delaware and Lehigh National 

Heritage Corridor (Pennsylvania) tells the story of how the Delaware and Lehigh Canals and 

associated railroads opened up anthracite coal mines in Eastern Pennsylvania, which helped fuel 

much industrial development. MotorCities National Heritage Area (Michigan) tells the story of 

automobile manufacturing. Of the several themes interpreted by the Essex National Heritage Area 

(Massachusetts), the shipbuilding, shoe, and textile industries are among them. The Hudson River 

Valley National Heritage Area (New York) includes industry and commerce among its heritage 

themes.

The suitability analysis also examines whether these themes are represented at “protected areas” 

managed by private entities. There are many sites operated by non-profit entities interpreting 

industrial enterprises.

Aspects of firearms industry history and precision manufacturing are interpreted at the American 

Precision Museum (Robbins & Lawrence Armory & Machine Shop NHL) in Windsor, Vermont. 

The American Precision Museum focuses on interpreting its large collection of machine tools. 

The exhibit does not treat the broader technological, business, and social implications of 

manufacturing and does not carry the story into the 20th century. The Eli Whitney Museum in 

Hamden, Connecticut, located at the site of Eli Whitney’s firearms factory, focuses primarily on K-12 

science and technology education and does little to interpret the history of the Whitney factory and 

precision manufacturing.

The Smithsonian Institution and the Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Michigan, have large 

collections of many kinds of manufacturing machinery, much of which is not on public display. The 

Hagley Museum, in Wilmington, Delaware, interprets various aspects of American industrial history, 

including the gunpowder and explosives manufacturing undertaken in the Brandywine Valley, most 

notably by the DuPont Company.

There are a number of museums across the country displaying collections of historic firearms, 

though they tend not to focus on the manufacturing and business aspects of the story. One of the 

leading collections of Colt firearms is at the Cody Firearms Museum, which is part of the Buffalo Bill 

Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. 

In Hartford, the Museum of Connecticut History and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of 

Art each have collections of Colt firearms, machinery, and memorabilia related to Samuel and 
41

Elizabeth Colt and the Colt Fire Arms Company. Both of these museums have indicated an interest 

in participating in collaborative efforts to interpret Coltsville in partnership with the National Park 

Service. 

Coltsville enhances appreciation of the branch of industrialization based on precision 

manufacturing, a class of industry that is under-represented in the current listing of NHLs. NHLs 

such as the Old Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the Harrisville mill village in Harrisville, 

New Hampshire, the Boston Manufacturing Company mills in Waltham, Massachusetts, the Lowell 

National Historic Park, the Lowell Locks and Canals Historic District in Lowell, Massachusetts, 

and the Cheney Brothers silk mills Historic District in Manchester, Connecticut, illustrate textile 

manufacturing, a branch of industrialization whose impacts were quite different from those of 

precision manufacturing. 

Despite the number of National Park units and private “protected areas” that interpret industrial 

history, no site fully interprets precision manufacturing or the large-scale private-sector firearms 

manufacturing that developed during the second half of the 19th century. 

Based upon the preceding analysis and that in Chapter 2 of this report, the following conclusions 

have emerged:

• Coltsville provides a unique opportunity to interpret the NPS Thematic Framework 

themes of Developing the American Economy, Expanding Science and Technology, and the 

Changing Role of the United States in the World Community. Potential visitor interpretive 

experiences at Coltsville include: 

(1) firearms manufacturing and the roles of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt; 

(2) precision technology and its impact upon other products, such as sewing machines, 

typewriters, bicycles, and even automobiles; 

(3) the importance of entrepreneurship and marketing in developing industrial enterprises; 

and 

(4) the life of an urban industrial community, including its owners, managers and workers.

• Of the national park system units that interpret industrial history, only the Springfield 

Armory NHS interprets firearms manufacturing, and the site focuses mainly on the military 

development of firearms, since the armory was a federal military installation. 

• Coltsville has the potential to go well beyond the Springfield Armory NHS in the 

interpretation of precision technology, entrepreneurship and business marketing, and the 

Samuel Colt often gave specimens 

of his firearms as gifts to notables 

and those who might purchase his 

firearms in bulk. The Colt Company 

gave this presentation New Model 

Belt Pistol, .36 caliber to a U.S. 

Navy official during the Civil 

War. Details shown. Wadsworth 

Atheneum Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. 

Charles W. Butler, 1932.5.
42

evolution of industrial communities. The Colt Fire Arms Company adapted and improved 

upon the Springfield Armory’s manufacturing techniques for private enterprise, organized 

them to produce innovative consumer products, established a strong international brand 

identity, and disseminated innovative manufacturing technologies to several other major 

industries. 

Historians see a fundamental distinction between the textile industry and precision 

manufacturing, which has been technologically more advanced and has led to the rise 

of such industries as sewing machines, typewriters, bicycles, automobiles, and aircraft 

engines. University of Massachusetts-Amherst historian Bruce Laurie regards the precision 

manufacturing pioneered by the Springfield Armory and the Colt Fire Arms Company as 

representative of the “Second Industrial Revolution,” which marked an advance over the 

textile industry represented at Lowell, Massachusettes, and which was indicative of the 

“First Industrial Revolution”: 

The Second Industrial Revolution catapulted this nation to world leadership in technology 

and productivity, projecting it far beyond the capacity of the Lowells of America. No 

nation ever achieved sustained greatness on the First Industrial Revolution and none ever 

will; it was the Second Industrial Revolution that made this nation an industrial power.1

• The Colt Fire Arms factory represents the acme of precision manufacturing, as it 

developed in the Connecticut River Valley. The National Park Service’s Connecticut River 

Valley Special Reconnaissance Study (1998) found that precision manufacturing created a 

distinctive, highly advanced industrial region in the Connecticut River Valley:

Precision manufacturing is associated with a distinctive social and architectural 

landscape, paralleling but different from the complexes formed by the textile industry 

elsewhere in New England, or the heavy industry of Pennsylvania. The higher skill 

level and consequent higher earnings of many workers in the precision trades seems to 

have encouraged the development of more prosperous, stable communities. There was a 

prestige associated with arms-making, particularly in manufacturing the weapons used 

in national defense. Metalworking plants were usually quieter and less visibly polluting, 

so they were more acceptable as neighbors. 

The interior of the Colt 

forging shop. Innovations in 

forging, developed by Armory 

Superintendent Elisha K. Root, 

were of paramount importance 

in propelling the Colt Company 

to the forefront of metalworking 

technology. The interior, including 

the distinctive wooden trusses (but 

absent the equipment), appears 

today much as it does in the 

engraving. From U.S. Magazine, 

March, 1857.
43

William Hosley, in Colt: The Making of an American Legend (1996), wrote that the 

Connecticut River Valley in the 1850s was “what California’s Silicon Valley is today, the 

vanguard of an internationally significant, technology-based transformation that changed 

the world of work.” Just as the textile industry developed across much of Eastern New 

England, the steel industry arose in Pennsylvania, and the auto industry became dominant 

in Michigan, firearms and precision manufacturing emerged in the corridor stretching from 

Bridgeport and New Haven to Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, to 

Windsor, Vermont. 

In conclusion, this study finds that Coltsville offers an opportunity to provide public understanding 

and appreciation of the nationally significant story of the development of the private-sector firearms 

manufacturing during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. With a comprehensive 

ensemble of industrial structures and associated buildings, Coltsville has significant interpretive 

and educational potential to tell the stories of precision manufacturing, innovative branding and 

entrepreneurial business organization, and the development of an integrated industrial community. 

The collections of Colt firearms and memorabilia and precision manufacturing equipment at the 

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Museum of Connecticut History could complement 

Coltsville in telling the Colt Firearms Company story. The analysis conducted during the course 

of this study indicates that the Colt Fire Arms factory and related structures in the Coltsville NHL

district are suitable for inclusion in the National Park System.

Feasibility Analysis 

NPS Management Policies 2006 outlines criteria for evaluating the feasibility of new units proposed 

for addition to the national park system:

To be feasible as a new unit of the national park system, an area must (1) be of sufficient size 

and appropriate configuration to ensure sustainable resource protection and visitor enjoyment 

(taking into account current and potential impacts from sources beyond proposed park 

boundaries); and (2) be capable of efficient administration by the NPS at a reasonable cost. 

In evaluating feasibility, the Service considers a variety of factors, such as: size; boundary 

configurations; current and potential uses of the study area and surrounding lands; 

land ownership patterns; public enjoyment potential; costs associated with acquisition, 

development, restoration, and operation; access; current and potential threats to the 

resources; existing degradation of resources; staffing requirements; local planning and 

zoning for the study area; the level of local and general public support; and the economic/

socioeconomic impacts of designation as a unit of the national park system. 

The feasibility evaluation also considers the ability of the National Park Service to undertake 

new management responsibilities in light of current and projected constraints on funding and 

personnel. 

To assist in the determination of the feasibility of establishing a unit of the national park system 

at Coltsville Historic District, the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee obtained funding from the State 

of Connecticut’s Commission on Culture and Tourism to engage a consultant to examine various 

potential visitor experience scenarios at the site and presented a report to the NPS study team for 

evaluation. The consultant team was headed by Museum Insight and included Roberts Consulting, 

objectIdea, and Economic Stewardship. Working with the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee, the 

consultant team developed a report “Coltsville National Park Visitor Experience Study” (December, 

2008). As part of the study process, the consultant team met with local stakeholder groups, including 

the owner of the Colt East Armory, to ascertain their commitments to a potential Coltsville national 

park unit. 

The study outlined three potential scenarios, which differed primarily in the range of Coltsville 

Historic District resources that would be available to the visitors. The study assumed that the then 

developer of Colt Gateway would make available space in the East Armory for a contact station/

visitor center under each scenario. The developer indicated a general interest in making space 

available, but made no tangible commitment to do so. It is important to note that the management of 

the East Armory has changed since the consultant’s study was completed. A new corporation, Urban 

Smart Growth, has been in the process of management and ownership transition.
44

The Coltsville visitor experience proposed in the report would be focused on the East Armory 

and the overall Coltsville Historic District, with opportunities to view and learn about Armsmear, 

worker housing, Colt Park, the Church of the Good Shepherd, and the Caldwell Colt Memorial 

Parish House. These scenarios assume that the NPS would manage an area within the East Armory 

dedicated to an NPS contact station/visitor center and that other partners would provide financial 

and technical resources, and loan Colt-related artifacts. The three scenarios are:

Basic Scenario—The resources available in this scenario would be limited to a relatively small 

contact station located on the first level of the East Armory. The contact station would provide 

information for visitors and would serve as a base for weekend ranger guided tours of the 

Coltsville Historic District NHL. This scenario proposes a 1,500-square foot contact station and 

interpretive signage at key locations around the historic district. The scenario assumes limited 

staff assigned from the Springfield Armory will be available to conduct the weekend tours. 

Capital costs are estimated at $700,000. Annual operational costs are estimated at $150,000. 

East Armory Scenario—In this scenario, visitors would have access to all four levels of the 

historic East Armory, where much of the firearm manufacturing took place. It would include 

a more extensive contact station, an interpretive exhibit with artifacts from the Wadsworth 

Atheneum Museum of Art and the Connecticut State Museum, a multimedia experience in 

the East Armory, and an observation area under the blue onion dome with views over the site 

to the rest of the city. This scenario would comprise 10,000 square feet in the East Armory. It 

would feature a Colt Manufacturing Multimedia Experience that would be modeled on the 

Flour Tower at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. Visitors would be seated in a freight 

elevator stopping at four floors of the factory. At each floor doors would open and multimedia 

recreations would represent activities on each of the manufacturing floors without having to 

dedicate large sections of each floor to the visitor experience. The multimedia techniques could 

allow visitors to learn about firearm manufacturing, Samuel and Elizabeth Colt, and listen to 

oral histories from employees. A 2,500-square foot fourth-floor Colt gallery and observation 

area would provide interpretive panels and a view over the Coltsville Historic District. Costs 

associated with this scenario are estimated at $6,800,000 in capital improvements and $300,000 

for annual operations. The facilities would be open daily throughout the year with on-site 

NPS staff. Costs would be shared among federal, state and local governments, and corporate 

partners.

Full Site Scenario—This scenario would include everything in the East Armory Scenario 

as well as implementation of a Cultural Landscape Master Plan that would make the entire 

Coltsville Historic District inviting and walkable. It would include physical linkages and 

complementary experiences at the Riverfront and the Botanical Garden in Colt Park. In 

addition to the 10,000 square feet utilized in the East Armory Scenario, this scenario would 

use an additional 5,000 square feet in the East Armory for interpretive and educational 

programming. Costs associated with this scenario are estimated at $21,000,000 for capital 

improvements and $330,000 for annual operations. Costs would be shared among federal, state 

and local governments, and corporate partners. 

The NPS study team drew upon these three scenarios developed in the Coltsville National Park 

Visitor Experience Study to examine their feasibility for a potential unit of the national park system. 

Although the scenarios may prove appropriate for differing intensities of visitor experience, none 

of the parties mentioned in the scenarios, most importantly the developer of the Colt East Armory, 

have made tangible commitments that could lead to the required feasibility findings in this special 

resource study.

The following is an evaluation of Coltsville in accordance with the NPS Management Policies 2006

feasibility criteria.

Size & Configuration: This special resource study concludes that Coltsville is of sufficient 

size and configuration to permit adequate resource protection and visitor experiences. The 

boundary of a potential unit at Coltsville would be coterminous with the Coltsville Historic 

District NHL. The district includes 10 industrial buildings; 19 worker housing buildings; the 
45

Samuel Colt Home (Armsmear) National Historic Landmark (NHL); the Colt Dike, which runs 

along Warwarme Avenue and Van Dyke Avenue; the 105-acre Colt Park, originally part of the 

Armsmear grounds; the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish 

House. 

Building Uses & Land Ownership: The original developer of the Colt Gateway project, 

owner of all 10 factory buildings, was redeveloping the factory buildings for office, retail, and 

residential uses prior to 2009. As indicated previously, these properties are in the process of 

being transferred to a new management group–Urban Smart Growth. Since ownership and 

future plans for the Colt factory buildings remain uncertain, it is impossible for any party to 

make commitments that factory buildings would be available for a national park unit. The 10 

worker houses were rehabilitated in the 1980s as 55 condominiums and are privately owned. 

The nine “Potsdam” cottages are also privately owned. Colt Park is owned and managed by the 

City of Hartford. Armsmear is owned and managed by the Colt Trust. The Church of the Good 

Shepherd and the Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish House serve an Episcopalian congregation. 

Access: The study team cannot make positive findings related to public access to any structures 

at Coltsville. While the study team met with the previous Colt Gateway developer and 

understood that a proposal would be forthcoming regarding use of properties, no proposal was 

ever submitted. No commitments to permit visitors internal access to the Colt Fire Arms factory 

buildings currently exist. The new developer, Urban Smart Growth, has recently expressed 

strong interest in a NPS presence at the site, but discussions of such arrangements are somewhat 

premature during the transition phase of ownership of the properties. 

The Coltsville National Park Visitor Experience Study had a perspective that the Basic Scenario 

would require interior access to 1,500 square feet in the historic East Armory to provide a 

minimal visitor experience. The East Armory and Full Site Scenarios in the Coltsville National 

Park Visitor Experience Study would require up to 15,000 square feet in the East Armory. NPS

staff and the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee and its consultants have observed that internal 

access to the East Armory, the historic core of the Colt Fire Arms Company, would be necessary 

to providing a meaningful visitor experience at Coltsville since this important resource is still 

extant and is potentially available for public visitation. 

External access to factory views could be available, but is has become apparent that the quality 

of the visitor experience would be inadequate in comparison to that provided by internal access 

to the East Armory.

No offers of access have been received from the Church of the Good Shepherd and the 

Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish House. The workers housing and “Potsdam Cottages” would 

not be suitable for visitor access since they are private residences, but agreements for the 

placement of exterior interpretive devices would enhance the visitor experience. Colt Park 

would be suitable for visitation if assurances were received from the City of Hartford that 

management practices at the site would be compatible with its designation as a component of a 

unit of the national park system. 

Access to even a small portion of Armsmear would significantly enhance visitor understanding 

of this NHL and the family life of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt, but this may not be possible. At an 

April 2009 meeting, a representative of Armsmear indicated that, since the house is currently a 

private multi-unit residence, it would be problematic to allow internal visitor access to the home.

Access to the Coltsville area by motor vehicle, public transit, and by walking is relatively easy 

because the neighborhood directly abuts the south side of downtown Hartford. Interstate-91 

passes directly in front of the Colt East Armory and has exits within one mile of the site. Several 

major Hartford streets, including Main Street, Wethersfield Avenue, Whitehead Highway, 

Charter Oak Avenue, and Columbus Boulevard, connect to Coltsville. A local bus line passes 

directly by the former Colt Fire Arms factory. Parking could be provided in a large parking lot 

owned by the Colt Gateway developer. 
46

Threats to the Resource & Degradation of Resources: The Colt Fire Arms factory buildings 

have suffered gradual disinvestment since the end of World War II and the subsequent 

move of the company headquarters to West Hartford, Connecticut. Some of the buildings 

have been vacant, while others have been used for purposes such as warehousing and artist 

studios. In 2003, the original Colt Gateway developer, Homes for America Holdings, Inc., 

started rehabilitating and leasing the former factory space. In order to obtain federal historic 

preservation tax credits, the developer followed the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the 

Treatment of Historic Properties regarding character-defining features such as windows, roofs, 

and facades. The buildings are structurally sound and the factory complex maintains much of 

its historic integrity. Rehabilitation of the Colt factory buildings is only partially completed, and 

there is new ownership of the site. There is no assurance of continued preservation efforts at 

the site. The 10 worker houses and nine “Potsdam” cottages are privately owned. Colt Park is 

owned and managed by the City of Hartford. Armsmear is owned and managed by the Colt 

Trust. The Church of the Good Shepherd and the Caldwell Colt Memorial Parish House are an 

Episcopalian parish. All these properties are well maintained and do not appear to be at risk.

Public Enjoyment Potential: Coltsville’s historic resources are extensive and have the potential 

to provide the public with a viable and educational national park experience. Access to the 

industrial buildings, church properties, the Colt Park and Armsmear, as well as exhibits and 

the use of collections from area institutions, would provide visitors with an understanding 

and appreciation of the Colts, precision manufacturing at the factories, and workers stories. 

Until public access issues are resolved, local commitments for sharing financial resources and 

collections cannot be fully ascertained. 

Costs of Acquisition, Restoration, Development, and Operation: Without tangible 

commitments to make space available in the Colt East Armory for public visitation and knowledge 

of the terms of access to other structures at Coltsville, the study team is unable to develop cost 

estimates, or to verify the estimates in the Coltsville National Park Visitor Experience Study for 

the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee. Financial feasibility would in large part depend upon access 

and partnerships with other public and private entities. It would be enhanced by local financial 

contributions. No firm offers of financial assistance have been forthcoming during the study, 

although supporters of unit designation have consistently indicated that if Coltsville becomes a 

unit of the national park system, such assistance could become available. 

Staffing Requirements: The size and scope of a potential unit of the national park system at 

Coltsville is uncertain. Therefore, the study team is unable to estimate staffing requirements or 

to assess the potential level of visitation. 

Local Planning and Zoning for the Study Area: The Coltsville study area is located in two 

City of Hartford land use zones. The 10 former industrial buildings, located between Huyshope 

Avenue and Van Dyke Avenue, are located in an Industrial District-2 zone, which also is part of 

an Industrial Re-Use Overlay District. The overlay district has been established to encourage 

reuse of industrial buildings constructed before World War II for residential and commercial 

purposes as well as industrial purposes. The overlay district allows the creation of residential 

units in former industrial space as long as they are located above commercial or industrial 

uses or are physically separated from such uses if they are on the same level. The plans to build 

residential apartments in the former Colt Fire Arms factory meet the zoning requirements. 

The former worker housing is in a Residential-3 zone, which is considered a Medium Density 

Residential District. This zoning permits the existing multi-family housing in this area to exist by right.

Hartford is implementing a downtown revitalization strategy that seeks to knit together the 

fragmented sections of the downtown into a cohesive whole. Much attention is being focused 

on redeveloping the Riverfront area known as Adriaen’s Landing. This is the site of Connecticut 

Convention Center, the Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration, the Hartford Marriott 

Downtown Hotel, and new shops. Located to the south, Coltsville serves as an extension of 

the downtown revitalization activity. The City of Hartford considers the redevelopment of 

Coltsville and the establishment of a national park unit there an important part of its urban 

redevelopment efforts.
47

Level of Local Public Support: There have been strong indications of local support for 

designating Coltsville as a unit of the national park system. The Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee’s 

membership represents a broad cross-section of state and local governments and nonprofit 

organizations. At public meetings concerning this study, there has been widespread support 

expressed for the designation of a unit of the national park system. The Hartford Courant, 

the city’s daily newspaper, has published several editorials supporting the establishment of a 

national park at Coltsville.

Economic/Socioeconomic Impacts of Designation as Unit of National Park System: 

Without the ability to determine exactly how a potential unit of the national park system would 

be configured at Coltsville, the study team is unable to assess economic/socioeconomic impacts.

NPS Management Policies 2006 provides that in a special resource study an overall evaluation of 

feasibility will be made after taking into account all of the above factors. However, evaluations may 

sometimes identify concerns or conditions, rather than simply reach a yes or no conclusion. For 

example, some new areas may be feasible additions to the national park system only if landowners 

are willing to sell, or the boundary encompasses specific areas necessary for visitor access, or 

state or local governments will provide appropriate assurances that adjacent land uses will remain 

compatible with the study area’s resources and values. 

In the case of Coltsville, a number of factors have extended the study process, particularly in 

determining the feasibility of establishing a unit of the national park system. These include the 

study team’s inability to ascertain what interior spaces would be available for visitor use and park 

management and what specific local commitments there may be to provide, through loans or 

permanent exhibits, resources associated with the Colt family or the operations and products of the 

Colt factories. While there are letters of interest in the study record by state and local organizations 

interested in participating with the NPS and in loaning Colt associated resources, at this point, there 

is no place determined as the locus of a potential park unit.

Largely because of the evolving situation regarding ownership and use of the Colt factory complex 

and the lack of public access to interior spaces of many of the Coltsville Historic District’s resources, 

The Church of the Good Shepherd 

was built by Elizabeth Colt as a 

memorial to her deceased husband 

in 1869. Designed by architect 

Edward Tuckerman Potter. 

James C. O’Connell, National Park 

Service.
48

this study must conclude that the feasibility criterion for establishing a unit of the national park 

system at Coltsville cannot be met under the present circumstances. It is possible that as ownership 

issues are resolved, development plans crystallized, and partnerships better established among 

potentially contributing institutions and organizations, that the feasibility criterion could be met 

in the future. More specific proposals devised collaboratively by the new developer of the factory 

complex, the state, city, and institutions that have Colt associated resources could provide the 

necessary public access to structures and other resources and collections within a cost range that 

would enable feasibility to be established. Such a collaborative effort should address the feasibility 

issues raised in this report and provide necessary information regarding how each of the partners 

would contribute to the overall viability of establishing and operating a sustainable unit of the 

national park system.

Analysis of the Need for National Park Service Management 

As with the feasibility criteria, it impossible at this time to determine that a need for NPS 

management exists. The study team has been unable to determine what resources would actually be 

managed and protected by the NPS and what level of visitation and visitor services may be required. 

Until such time as the feasibility findings are resolved, the study must conclude that there is no 

current need for NPS management of the Coltsville resources.

Study Conclusions 

This congressionally authorized Coltsville Special Resource Study concludes that the resources 

in the Coltsville Historic District meet the criteria for national significance and suitability but, at 

present, do not meet the criteria for feasibility and need for NPS management. As stated above, it is 

possible that the feasibility and need for NPS management criteria could potentially be met if the 

feasibility issues discussed in this report are resolved over time. 

Environmental Compliance

Since this study concludes that the resources associated with the Coltsville Historic District NHL do 

not fully meet the criteria for potential designation as a unit of the national park system, no federal 

action is anticipated. Therefore, a notice will be placed in the Federal Register that an environmental 

impact statement will not be prepared. 

Endnote

1

 Bruce Laurie, “The Second Industrial Revolution,” Background Statement Prepared for Springfield Armory National Historic 

Site (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts-Amherst, History Department, January 3, 2005).
49

Chapter 4: Consultation and Public Outreach

This chapter describes the required consultation procedures, public meetings, and comments 

related to the preparation of the Coltsville Special Resource Study.

Notice of Intent

A notice of intent to conduct a Special Resources Study/Environmental Impact Statement was 

published in the Federal Register on September 2, 2004.

Public Scoping Meeting

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a public scoping meeting for the 

Coltsville Special Resource Study took place on October 20, 2004. The meeting, which was attended 

by approximately 100 people, provided an opportunity for members of the public to express specific 

issues that the study should address. Twenty-seven people spoke at the public scoping meeting, 

virtually every person expressing support for the establishment of unit of the national park system 

at Coltsville. Congressman John B. Larson spoke in favor of a national park site at Coltsville, stating 

he had sponsored the Congressional legislation to undertake the Coltsville SRS. Aides of Senator 

Christopher Dodd and Senator Joseph Lieberman read statements expressing the senators’ support 

for a national park. Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez also spoke in favor of a national park designation. 

Additional Meetings and Public Participation

Public meetings to discuss and answer questions about the National Historic Landmark (NHL) 

nomination for Coltsville were held on August 3, 2006, and August 8, 2007. NPS staff, which 

assisted in preparing the NHL nomination, made a presentation. Residents of the immediate area, 

include residents of the historic Colt housing, were invited to attend. Attendees expressed strong 

support for the Coltsville NHL nomination. Members of the study team met periodically with 

staff of Congressman John B. Larson, Senator Christopher Dodd, and Senator Joseph Lieberman 

for briefings, as well as members of the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee at the committee’s request. 

Meetings were conducted with state and local officials, nonprofit stakeholders related to Coltsville, 

and the Colt Gateway developers. Various ad hoc contacts with members of the public occurred 

during the study. A briefing for congressional staff and members of the Ad Hoc Committee was 

conducted in April 2009 to inform them of the conclusions of the study.

Written Communication

The Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee, which sponsored the consultant study “Coltsville National 

Park Visitor Experience Study” (December, 2008), sought letters of support from stakeholders 

for creating a national park unit, as discussed in the report. Letters of support were submitted 

by Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell (December 17, 2008); Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez 

(December 12, 2008); Connecticut State Historic Preservation Officer and Executive Director of 

the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism Karen Senich; Connecticut State Librarian 
50

Kendall Wiggin; Connecticut Humanities Council Executive Director Bruce Fraser; Connecticut 

Trust for Historic Preservation Executive Director Helen Higgins; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum 

of Art Director Susan L. Talbott; Riverfront Recapture President Joseph R. Marfuggi; CSS/CON Inc. 

Executive Director Carol Coburn; Hartford Botanical Garden Planning Committee President Lisa 

Musumeci. 

Consultation

Formal consultation was undertaken with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the 

Connecticut State Historic Preservation Officer (Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism), 

and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. A letter (November, 2007) was 

sent to USFWS concerning any potential threats to natural resources, including threatened and 

endangered species. No response letter has been received, but the USFWS website was consulted 

and no threatened and endangered species were identified. The Connecticut Department of 

Environmental Protection (May, 2006) indicated that there are no known extant populations of 

Federal or State Endangered, Threatened or Special Concern Species that occur at the site. The 

Connecticut State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) expressed (December, 2007) support for 

establishing an NPS unit at Coltsville. The Connecticut SHPO was active in preparing the Coltsville 

NHL nomination and was a member of the Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee. The NPS Northeast 

Region ethnographer has advised that there are no American Indian Tribes that may have interests in 

the study area. See Appendix 4: Letters of Consultation.
51

Appendix 1: Federal Legislation for Coltsville Special 

Resource Study, PL. 108-94
52
53

Surveys and Guidebooks

 Andrews, Gregory E., and David F. Ransom. Structures and 

Styles: Guided Tours of Hartford Architecture. Hartford: 

Connecticut Historical Society, 1988.

Kummer, Merle, ed. Hartford Architecture. Vol. 2. South 

Neighborhoods. Hartford: Hartford Architecture 

Conservancy, 1980.

Roth, Matthew W. Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic 

Engineering and Industrial Sites. Washington, DC: 

Historic American Engineering Record, 1981.

Historical Maps and Views

 Atlas of the City of Hartford and the Town of West Hartford. 

Springfield, Mass.: L. J. Richards & Co., 1909.

 Atlas of Hartford, Connecticut, City and County. Hartford: 

Baker & Tilden, 1869.

City Atlas of Hartford, Connecticut. Philadelphia: G. M. 

Hopkins, 1880.

The City of Hartford, Connecticut. “Bird’s-Eye View.” 

Boston: O. H. Bailey, 1877. 

“Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Company’s Manufactory,” in Asher 

& Adams Pictorial Album of American Industry. New 

York: Asher & Adams, 1876.

“Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, Hartford, 

Connecticut.” Isometric view on cover of Real Estate and 

Buildings Account book (see next section).

Sanborn Map and Publishing Company. Insurance maps of 

Hartford. Microfilm, Connecticut State Library, Hartford.

Secondary Works 

Barnard, Henry. Armsmear: The Home, the Arm, and the 

Armory of Samuel Colt, A Memorial. Hartford: privately 

printed, 1866.

Barnes, G.M. Weapons of World War II. New York: D. Van 

Nostrand Company, 1947.

Best, Michael. The New Competition: Institutions of 

Industrial Restructuring. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

University Press, 1990.

Boorman, Dean K. The History of Colt Firearms. New York: 

Lyons Press, 2001.

Bradley, Betsy Hunter. The Works: The Industrial 

Architecture of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Bradley, Joseph. Arms for the Tsar: American Technology and 

the Small Arms Industry in Nineteenth-Century Russia. 

DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990.

Browning, John and Curt Gentry. John M. Browning, 

American Gunmaker. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964.

Cawelti, John. The Six-Gun Mystique. 2nd ed. Bowling Green, 

OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1984.

Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial 

Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: The 

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977.

Clouette, Bruce Alan. “”Getting Their Share” Irish and Italian 

Immigrants in Hartford, Connecticut, 1850-1940.” Ph.D. 

diss., University of Connecticut, 1992.

Deyrup, Felicia Johnson. Arms Making in the Connecticut 

Valley: A Regional Study of the Economic 

Development of the Small Arms Industry, 1798-1870. York, 

PA: George Shumway, Publisher, 1970.

Edwards, William B. The Story of Colt’s Revolver: the 

Biography of Col. Samuel Colt. Harrisburg, PA: The 

Stackpole Company, 1953.

Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. 

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Evans, Harold. They Made America, From the Steam Engine 

to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators. New 

York: Little, Brown and Company, 2004.

Fitch, Charles H. “Report on the Manufacturers of 

Interchangeable Mechanism.” In Tenth Census of the 

United States (1880): Manufactures. Vol. 2. Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, 1883.

Grant, Ellsworth S. The Colt Legacy: The Colt Armory in 

Hartford, 1855-1980. Providence, RI: Mowbray Company, 

1982.

Haven, Charles T. and Belden, Frank A. A History of the Colt 

Revolver and the Other Arms Made by Colt’s Patent Fire 

Arms Manufacturing Company from 1836-1940. New 

York: Bonanza Books, 1940.

Hine, Robert V. & John Mack Faragher, The American West: 

A New Interpretive History. New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 2000.

Hosley, William. Colt, The Making of an American Legend. 

Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.

Hounshell, David. From American System to Mass 

Production: The Development of Manufacturing 

Technology in the United States. Baltimore: The Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 1984.

House, Herbert G. Colt Rifles and Muskets from 1847 to 1870. 

Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1996.

Janeway, Eliot. The Struggle for Survival: A Chronicle of 

Economic Mobilization in World War II. New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 1951.

Johnson, George B. and Hans Bert Lockhoven. International 

Armament, Vols. I & II. Cologne, Germany: International 

Small Arms Publishers, 1965.

Mayr, Otto and Robert C. Post, eds., Yankee Enterprise: 

The Rise of the American System of Manufactures, 

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981.

McGrath, Roger. Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes: 

Violence on the Frontier. Berkeley, CA: University of 

California Press, 1984.

Raber, Michael S., “Conservative Innovators, Military Small 

Arms, and Industrial History at Springfield Armory, 

1794-1918,” The Journal of the Society for Industrial 

Archaeology, Vol. 14, Number 1, 1988, pp. 1-21.

Appendix 2: Bibliography
54

Roe, Joseph Wickham. English and American Tool Builders. 

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916.

Rohan, Jack. Yankee Arms Maker: The Incredible Career of 

Samuel Colt. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 

1935.

Rosenberg, Nathan. Perspectives in Technology. New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Slaton, Amy E. Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization 

of American Building, 1900-1930. Baltimore: The Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Smith, Merritt Roe. Harpers Ferry Armory and the New 

Technology: The Challenge of Change. Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 1977.

Smith, Merritt Roe, ed. Military Enterprise and 

Technological Change: Perspectives on the American 

Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985.

Snell, Mark A. From First to Last: The Life of Major General 

William B. Franklin. New York: Fordham University Press, 

2002. 

Webb, Walter Prescott. The Great Frontier. Austin, Texas: 

University of Texas Press, 1964.

Wermiel, Sara. The Fireproof Building: Technology and 

Public Safety in the Nineteenth-Century American City. 

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 

Wilson, R. L. Colt, an American Legend. New York: Abbeville 

Press, 1985.

Wilson, R.L. The Colt Heritage: The Official History of Colt 

Firearms from 1836 to the Present. New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1979.
55

National Park Service Northeast Region

James C. O’Connell, Community Planner, Park Planning and Special Studies Branch, NER, 

Study Project Manager 

Lisa Kolakowsky, Architectural Historian, National Historic Landmarks Program, NER 

Terrence D. Moore, Chief, Park Planning and Special Studies, NER

Duncan Hay, Cultural Resource Management Specialist, NER 

John Monroe, Outdoor Recreation Planner, NER

David Clark, Environmental Specialist, NER 

NPS Northeast Region Advisors

Dennis R. Reidenbach, Regional Director, NER

Michael Reynolds, Deputy Regional Director, NER

Maryanne R. Gerbauckas, Associate Regional Director, Heritage Preservation, Planning and 

Compliance, NER

Robert W. McIntosh, Associate Regional Director, Planning, Construction, & Facility Management, NER

Peggy Albee, Manager, Historical Architecture Program, NER

Sue Andrews, Management Analyst, Lowell National Historic Park

Richard Chilcoat, Preservation Specialist, Northeast Cultural Resources Center

Michael Quijano-West, Superintendent, Springfield Armory National Historic Site

Elliot Foulds, Landscape Architect, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

Elizabeth Igleheart, National Register Coordinator, NER

Jed Levin, Industrial Archaeologist, NER

William Machurat, Historical Architect, Northeast Cultural Resources Center

Robert Page, Director, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

Steven Pendery, Archaeologist, NER

Chuck Smythe, Regional Ethnographer, NER

Paul Weinbaum, History Program Manager, NER

Consultant

Larry Lowenthal, Historian 

Appendix 3: Study Team Contributors
56

Appendix 4: Letters of Consultation
57
58
59
60
61

The Coltsville Ad Hoc Committee, which sponsored the consultant study “Coltsville National 

Park Visitor Experience Study” (December, 2008), sought letters of support from stakeholders 

for creating a national park unit, as discussed in the report. Letters of support were submitted by 

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell; Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez; Connecticut State Historic 

Preservation Officer and Executive Director of the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism 

Karen Senich; Connecticut State Librarian Kendall Wiggin; Connecticut Humanities Council 

Executive Director Bruce Fraser; Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation Executive Director 

Helen Higgins; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Director Susan L. Talbott; Riverfront 

Recapture President Joseph R. Marfuggi; The Coalition to Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak 

Neighborhood Inc., Executive Director Carol Coburn; Hartford Botanical Garden Planning 

Committee President Lisa Musumeci. 

Appendix 5: Letters of Support for a Coltsville National 

Park Unit
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77

Department of the Interior

As the nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the 

Interior has the responsibility for most of our nationally-owned public lands 

and natural resources. Its duties include fostering sound use of our land 

and water resources; protecting our fish, wildlife and biological diversity; 

preserving the environmental and cultural values of our national parks and 

historic places; and providing for the enjoyment of life through outdoor 

recreation. The Department assesses our energy and mineral resources 

and works to ensure that their development is in the best interest of all 

our people by encouraging stewardship and citizen participation in their 

care. The Department also has major responsibility for American Indian 

reservation communities and for people who live in island territories under 

U.S. administration.

National Park Service

The National Park Service is a bureau within the Department of the Interior. 

Its mission is to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources 

and values of the National Park system for the enjoyment, education and 

inspiration of this and future generations. The Park Service cooperates 

with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resources 

conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world.