Hartford COUNTY · Industry & labor
Coltsville: Factory, Neighborhood and Family
The armory’s famous dome belonged to a much larger landscape of manufacturing, worker housing, family wealth and memorial architecture.
Historical focus · 1855–1907
![Colt’s Armory in the early twentieth century — [between 1900 and 1906]](/county-images/86c1048ec1d98d9b1ae53fe058591087f5113e4355c6d34114efab4195d6bc5b.jpg)
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The story in photographs
[between 1900 and 1906]
Colt’s Armory in the early twentieth century
Colt’s Armory in the early twentieth century — [between 1900 and 1906]
Image credit & source
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
No known restrictions on publication.
Original source · Reuse termsHartford, Conn. : 1866
The rebuilt Colt armory, 1866 print
The rebuilt Colt armory, 1866 print — Hartford, Conn. : 1866
Image credit & source
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
No known restrictions on publication.
Original source · Reuse termsc1907.
Armsmear, residence of Elizabeth Colt
Armsmear, residence of Elizabeth Colt — c1907.
Image credit & source
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Public domain in the United States; Detroit Publishing Company photograph published 1907.
Original source · Reuse terms1905.
The Colt residence in 1905
The Colt residence in 1905 — 1905.
Image credit & source
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
No known restrictions on publication.
Original source · Reuse terms2005 — later documentation
The armory dome, documented in 2005
The armory dome, documented in 2005 — 2005
Image credit & source
Lowe, Jet / Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse terms2005 — later documentation
Colt workers’ housing, documented in 2005
Colt workers’ housing, documented in 2005 — 2005
Image credit & source
Lowe, Jet / Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse termsFebruary 2005 — later documentation of a historic place
NORTH FACADE OF NORTH ARMORY. - Colt Fire Arms Company, North Armory, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke…
NORTH FACADE OF NORTH ARMORY. - Colt Fire Arms Company, North Armory, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
Image credit & source
Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse termsFebruary 2005 — later documentation of a historic place
INTERIOR FOURTH FLOOR, SOUTH HALF, LOOKING SOUTH. NOTE MUSHROOM COLUMNS AND CEILING HAS WOODEN NAILERS. - Colt Fire…
INTERIOR FOURTH FLOOR, SOUTH HALF, LOOKING SOUTH. NOTE MUSHROOM COLUMNS AND CEILING HAS WOODEN NAILERS. - Colt Fire Arms Company, North Armory, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
Image credit & source
Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse termsFebruary 2005 — later documentation of a historic place
INTERIOR FIFTH FLOOR, LOOKING WEST SHOWING MONITOR. ROOM MOST RECENTLY USED FOR ART STUDIO. - Colt Fire Arms…
INTERIOR FIFTH FLOOR, LOOKING WEST SHOWING MONITOR. ROOM MOST RECENTLY USED FOR ART STUDIO. - Colt Fire Arms Company, North Armory, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
Image credit & source
Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse termsFebruary 2005 — later documentation of a historic place
ROOF OF MACHINE SHOP BUILDING FROM ROOF OF SOUTH ARMORY. - Colt Fire Arms Company, Machine Shop, 36-150 Huyshope…
ROOF OF MACHINE SHOP BUILDING FROM ROOF OF SOUTH ARMORY. - Colt Fire Arms Company, Machine Shop, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
Image credit & source
Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse termsFebruary 2005 — later documentation of a historic place
PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF MACHINE SHOP BUILDING LOOKING SOUTHWEST. - Colt Fire Arms Company, Machine Shop, 36-150 Huyshope…
PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF MACHINE SHOP BUILDING LOOKING SOUTHWEST. - Colt Fire Arms Company, Machine Shop, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
Image credit & source
Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Original source · Reuse termsTHE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPHS
People, places, and change.
A manufacturing landscape
Samuel Colt’s new Hartford armory opened in 1855 on land in the South Meadows. The complex brought precision machinery, standardized parts and large-scale production into a single industrial setting. The surviving forge and foundry help explain how the factory worked: they were essential production spaces, not simply outbuildings beside the recognizable dome. The National Park Service notes that the narrow wings and large windows of the complex brought daylight deep into the workrooms. [1] [2]
Elizabeth Colt and rebuilding
Samuel Colt died in 1862. Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt inherited the company and remained its owner for the next 39 years. When fire destroyed much of the armory in 1864, the business continued and the signature dome was rebuilt. That sequence challenges a story centered only on the founder: the industrial landscape familiar in later photographs also reflects Elizabeth’s long stewardship and the labor of the people who rebuilt and operated the works. [1] [3]
The factory and the home
Coltsville included employee housing and social spaces as well as manufacturing buildings. Armsmear, the Colt family’s house, stood on higher ground overlooking the works. Comparing period views of the mansion and the armory makes the distance between industrial production and domestic display visible. The two were parts of one economic landscape. Later documentation of the workers’ houses adds another scale: the neighborhood should be read through everyday residence as well as through its most celebrated buildings. [1] [3] [5] [6]
Reading the surviving buildings
The 1866 armory print and early twentieth-century photographs record different moments in the life of the same complex. They should not be treated as interchangeable views of the original 1855 factory. The gallery also includes clearly dated 2005 federal architectural documentation to help readers compare surviving structures with historic images. This later photography documents the physical legacy of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century site; it is not evidence that the buildings looked identical in every earlier period. [4] [5] [7]
Sources & further reading (10)
- National Park Service: Coltsville history and culture
- National Park Service: The Forge and the Foundry
- National Park Service: Coltsville site history
- Library of Congress: Armory of Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Co., 1866
- Library of Congress: Colt’s Armory, c.1900–1906
- Library of Congress: Mrs. Samuel Colt’s residence, 1905
- Library of Congress: Colt workers’ housing documentation
- Library of Congress: Colt Fire Arms Company, North Armory, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
- Library of Congress: Colt Fire Arms Company, Machine Shop, 36-150 Huyshope Avenue, 17-170 Van Dyke Avenue, 49 Vredendale Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
- Library of Congress: Colt Fire Arms Company, Huyshope Avenue Workers Housing, Sequassen Street and Huyshope Avenue, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
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Building dates and photograph dates are recorded separately. Later photographs are identified in their captions; unknown exposure dates remain unknown. Follow each image’s credit and reuse terms.