When early photographers began recording scenes around
Simsbury, the town was over 200 years old and changing with
the times. Photographs taken in 1885 during a mile-high balloon ride
trace railroads, rather than the old canal, running through the town.
Grand Victorian mansions, some of them summer residences, arose
among cherished family homes on farms dating from colonial times.
The mills in the Tariffville section and Toy, Bickford & Company
near the center of town provided housing for workers who arrived
from Europe. Townspeople sent their youngest children to one of
12 district schools. By 1917, the town could boast of a centrally
located public high school as well as two private boarding schools. In
Simsbury, images capture the mix of old and new until the advent of
World War II.