Waterbury Clock Company Complex

As announced in the Rep-Am on June 26, the former Waterbury Clock office building will soon be demolished, along with portions of the factory complex. The buildings have been crumbling apart for decades. The factory complex is listed on the National Register of Historic Properties.

The former Waterbury Clock Company office building in 2007

Aerial View of the former Waterbury Clock Company factory complex, 2020

The Waterbury Clock Company was formed in 1857, a spin-off of the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company. It became a highly successful company, selling its products all over the world.

Although the name of the company specified clocks, they also produced watches, most notably the "dollar watch" starting in the 1890s. The watch was an oversize pocket watch with a mechanism based on alarm clocks. The company teamed up with Robert H. Ingersoll, a retailer in New York City, to improve and market the watch under the Ingersoll name. By 1910, Waterbury Clock was producing 3,500,000 dollar watches each year for Ingersoll. The watches were so ubiquitous, Ingersoll declared the product to be "the watch that made the dollar famous."

Despite the popularity of the dollar watch, Ingersoll went into bankruptcy in 1922. Waterbury Clock bought out their holdings, continuing the use of the Ingersoll name for a line of cheap watches. They later added a line of Disney character watches, including a highly collectible Mickey Mouse watch.

Waterbury Clock is also known for the devastating effects of radium on its employees. Radium was used in the early 1900s by several companies to highlight the dials on clocks and watches, making them visible in the dark. The radiation that made the dials glow in the dark also sickened and killed many of the young women hired to paint the radium onto the dials. All of the buildings in the North Elm Street complex have been tested for radiation hazards.

Waterbury Clock Company was purchased by Norwegian investors in 1942 and was renamed United States Time Corporation in 1944. The name was changed again in 1969, to Timex.




The Factory Complex

In 1873, Waterbury Clock moved a portion of its operations into a factory on Cherry and North Elm Streets previously used by the Great Brook Woolen Mill. The factory had been built in 1852 for the Waterbury Knitting Company, replacing an earlier sawmill (Anderson, Town and City of Waterbury, Vol. I, p. 588).

The image below of Waterbury Knitting Co. shows North Elm Street in the foreground. This building became the center of the factory complex as it grew over the course of half a century.

Waterbury Knitting Company
Detail from Richard Clark map of Waterbury, 1852

Waterbury Clock Co. used the North Elm Street factory for the production of clock movements. The clock cases were produced in a factory on Mill Street.

An illustration of the factory on North Elm Street in 1876 shows the original Waterbury Knitting factory buildings still in place. A bridge over Great Brook has a more substantial foundation than in the earlier illustration.

Engraving of the Waterbury Clock Co. movement factory, c. 1876
Originally published in Asher and Adams' Pictorial Album of American Industry, 1876;
reprinted in a newspaper article by Marie Coutu, c. 1976 (newspaper title not included in clipping)

By 1888, the company had built a five-story brick addition to the old movement shop. The brick addition to the movement shop was later enlarged to include a sixth floor and is now an apartment building.

The photograph below shows the new addition. The original factory can be glimpsed next to it, now nestled in cluster of buildings.

Waterbury Clock Company Movement Shop,
corner of North Elm Street and Cherry Avenue, c.1888

Published in Homer F. Bassett, Waterbury and Her Industries, 1889

The 1884 Sanborn insurance atlas shows the outline of the factory complex, along with the various activities in each area. The brick buildings are show in pink, wood in yellow. The original factory building is in the center.

Sanborn Insurance Atlas, 1884, plate 2

The 1890 Sanborn insurance atlas shows Great Brook running directly underneath the factory complex. Great Brook was essential to the early development of Waterbury factories, as the running water was used to power the mills.

Sanborn Insurance Atlas, 1890, plate 8

The company's office building was constructed during the 1890s, along with more factory buildings -- they appear on the 1901 Sanborn Insurance Atlas map.

Sanborn Insurance Atlas, 1901, plate 32

The factory complex was illustrated in Anderson's The Town and City of Waterbury in 1896, showing the new office building on Cherry Avenue.

Waterbury Clock Company complex, c. 1896

Illustrated in Anderson, Town and City of Waterbury, Vol. II, p. 378

Postcards from the early 1900s show the factory complex from a variety of angles.

Postcard view of the Waterbury Clock Co. Office Building, c. 1905

Collection of Museum of Connecticut History

Postcard view of Waterbury Clock Company at the corner of Cherry Street and Cherry Avenue

Collection of Silas Bronson Library Archives

Postcard view of Waterbury Clock Company from Maple Street, looking across Cherry Avenue

Collection of Silas Bronson Library Archives

By the 1920s, the factory complex filled almost the entire block and spread over to the other side of North Elm Street.

Waterbury Clock Co. factory complex, Waterbury Aero View inset, 1917

Library of Congress Geography and Map Division

Waterbury Clock Co. factory complex, Sanborn Insurance Atlas, Vol. 1, 1921

While portions of the factory complex have been renovated and put back into use for new functions, the buildings currently slated for demolition have failed to attract any developers. The factories were constructed in a densely concentrated location, with very little open space and no concern for the health of the workers or the neighborhood. Hopefully whatever replaces them will improve the overall quality of life for the people who live and work in the remaining buildings.