By Mel Montemerlo
Introduction
Windsor Locks came close to economic collapse two times in its life. Both times, it was rescued a a single person. It turns out that the second man to do it was a great-grandson of the first man to do it. This is the story of how our town was saved from a bad fate twice.
The history of the Enfield Falls Canal, which is often referred to as the Windsor Locks Canal, is fairly well known. What is not widely known is how close the canal came to being a business failure, and how it was saved. The continuance of the canal enabled the new town of Windsor Locks to grow from a small offshoot of the town of Windsor, into a self-sufficient, industry-based town.
The Enfield Falls Canal opened 1829, almost a quarter of a century before Windsor Locks came into existence in 1854. The plan for this canal and its funding was generated by a group of Hartford businessmen who wanted to expand their businesses by building a canal which would allow boats to go around the Enfield Falls. This would make the transportation of goods and people between Hartford and Springfield easy. Prior to the canal, most boats couldn’t make it past the Enfield Falls in the Connecticut River. There were ways of getting special boats over the falls, but they were difficult and expensive.
The Hartford businessmen were quite canny. They had a second goal in mind. The canal would also provide water power to buildings along the canal. This would motivate other entrepreneurs to build manufacturing plants (mills) along the canal. These entrepreneurs would, of course, have to pay for the water power produced by the canal. The Hartford businessmen were creative thinkers. They envisioned that a town would build up along the canal, and that it would be called “Windsor Locks”, because that name was advertising for the fact that the town had a canal. This new town would support the mills, and increase the need for transportation.
The canal was built, and it opened in 1829. Boat tra ffic drastically increased in both directions, and mills were built along the canal. Then in 1844, the Railroad came through Windsor Locks. The railroad provided cheaper and more convenient transportation for people and goods than the canal did. This was a big blow to the profitability of the canal. It eliminated one of the two means of having the canal make a profit.
As predicted, manufacturing plants were being built along the canal, The first three mills were built between 1831 and 1836. Although the mills were being built along the canal, and were using water power generated by the canal, the canal was not doing well financially. This was a “double whammy’ for the Hartford businessmen who had the canal built.
C.H. Dexter saved the canal (and Windsor Locks) in 1855
Jabez Haskell Hayden (1886) described the situation. He said that in 1855, Charles Haskell Dexter “became president of the Connecticut River Company, and in the fifteen years of his administration, made a fairly remunerative property of that which had been almost valueless to the stockholders.”
Mr. Dexter, who was a creative and capable engineer, and a highly successful businessman, took control of the canal, and figured out what was necessary to make the canal financially successful. Since the transportation aspect of the canal was gone, a change had to be made in the water power generation capability of the canal. C. H. Dexter devised and implemented methods of making the power generation capability profitable. The canal then became a financial success. This in turn made Windsor Locks grow and prosper.
The implications of what C.H. Dexter did are enormous. He saved Windsor Lock, which had recently incorporated, from losing the one thing that could make it grow and prosper — the canal. The Enfield Falls Canal brought employment and growth to Windsor Locks. It caused the town to become a mecca for European immigrants to work at the mills. The other side of Main Street became filled with stores and businesses to serve the people who settled in Windsor Locks. The town filled up the area between Main Street and West Street. In short, C.H. Dexter saved the town of Windsor Locks from becoming a very small town with no real future.
A Downturn in Windsor Locks
However, as the song says, “All good things must end someday”. The United States began to shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy in the early 1900s. Manufacturing was being shifted to foreign countries. What happened to manufacturing towns throughout the United States happened to Windsor Locks. The manufacturing plants along the canal began to close down. Manufacturing along the canal reached its high point in 1875 when thirteen of the manufacturing sites along the canal were occupied.
By 1900, there were 11. By 1950 there were 8, and by 1975, there were 3. By 2000, there was only 1. (Montemerlo, 2017) This, by itself, would have been devastating to the town of Windsor Locks. But things got worse. The other side of Main Street, which was a large number of retail businesses, was also going downhill. In the 1960s, the town government of Windsor Locks began the “Main Street Redevelopment Project”, in order to get rid of those old buildings and businesses. The town bought up the businesses, the buildings and the land, and demolished the buildings in the 1960s and 1970s. While the town government said that new businesses would come in to replace the old ones, not a single one did. The “Golden Era” of Windsor Locks’ Main Street had come to an end!
Dexter D. Coffin saved Windsor Locks in 1942
With the manufacturing side of Main Street going downhill fast, and the retail side of Main Street being torn down, the town of Windsor Locks was in bad shape. Unless a new economic engine could be found for Windsor Locks, its future was bleak.
It was Dexter D. Co ffin, the President of C.H. Dexter & Sons, the great-grandson of C.H. Dexter, and an avid pilot, who turned things around. He heard that the U.S.Army was going to put a new military airbase in at Brainard Field in Hartford. He developed the idea of putting it in Windsor Locks, and he had the the political clout to make it happen. That happened in the late 1940s. It became a civilian airport named Bradley Field, which attracted aeronautics companies such as Hamilton Standard and Kaman Aircraft to the area, which then resulted in more businesses being developed to support the airport and the aviation companies. In the 1950s and 60s, the Southwest area of Windsor Locks filled up with houses for the people working in those businesses. The Bradley Field area replaced the Main Street area of Windsor Locks as the economic powerhouse of the town. Dexter D. Coffin “saved Windsor Locks”, just as his great grandfather had, about a century before.
Luckily for Windsor Locks, Dexter D. Co ffin performed this great feat in 1942, which was before the Main Street economy came to an end in the 1960s. So there was a “smooth” transition from the Main Street being the economic center of town to the Bradley Field area being the economic center of town.
Conclusion
It is impossible to overstate the importance of what Charles Haskell Dexter and Dexter D. Coffin did for Windsor Locks. No-one else in the history of Windsor Locks came close to doing for our town what these two men did. The effects of their feats cannot be overstated. Each “saved” Windsor Locks from having to exist without an industrial base. It is difficult to imagine what Windsor Locks would be like if those two men had not done what they did.
