Waterbury's Trotting Parks

Trotting parks were a 19th century feature of New England life, offering the owners of standardbred horses a track for races. The racing circuit included Waterbury, Hartford, Putnam, and various other locations throughout New England.

The earliest documentation (found so far) of a trotting park in Waterbury is the 1879 Waterbury atlas, which shows the Jefferson Trotting Park on land owned by Matthew Lynch. The location is approximately where the Waterbury Screw Machine Products company is today on Thomaston Avenue. In 1879, there was no road, only the railroad. There was also a reservoir that has long since been drained.

G. M. Hopkins, Atlas of the City of Waterbury, Conn., 1879, Plate T
(Collection of Silas Bronson Library)

Cyclone Bomb Day

Remember when winter storms were called things like nor'easter or blizzard? Things were so much simpler back then. At any rate, today we were hit with a small blizzard which dumped about a foot of snow on Waterbury. The Governor asked everyone to stay off the highways, and almost everything was closed.

A flock of about 50 sparrows spent the day in my yard, gobbling up bird seed.