ENGLISH MARCH 2020 - Issue 4

NEWSLETTER PAGE 3
19 Wheeler Street: A Historic Site with a New Purpose
The first thing you may notice at 19 Wheeler Street
in New Haven is the interesting architecture such
as brick arches and wooden beams throughout the
building. These unique features offer a glimpse of
the expansive and varied history of the site.
In the early 1800's this site, which sits along the
Quinnipiac River, was used as a fertilizer and acid
manufacturing facility. In 1860, two shipbuilding
companies, Pook and Bushnell and Warren C
Nettleton, built gunboats for the Civil War on the
site. Both firms sold their land in 1878 to ES
Wheeler, for whom the street is now named.
Wheeler, who established a small wire company
on Temple Street in New Haven, created the New
Haven Wire Company on these new sites in 1890.
This company was sold and renamed half a dozen
times before becoming the National Wire
Company. Overwhelmed by demand for steel wire
at the turn of the century, the building was
destroyed by a fire in 1901. It was immediately
rebuilt on a larger scale including the brick arches
and Douglas fir beams still on site today, but
inflation and bankruptcy burdened the company
until it was sold to the US Steel Corporation and
renamed American Steel and Wire Company in
1907.
By 1929, newspapers heralded the facility as
“ranking with the most important industrial
establishments in New Haven.” The company
boasted modern benefits such as an onsite
surgeon for employees and their families, a
summer outing for families, a Christmas party,
home purchasing program and pensions. The
company also offered instructions on hygiene
sanitation, infant care and general domestic
welfare.
In the 1940s, the War Production Board honored
American Steel in New Haven for breaking 6
different production records in 5 months. Wartime
demands for steel, however, left the company
struggling to keep up, even at its peak employment
of 1100 people. An excerpt from a 1945 paper
read:
"Bombs Away. Tons of destruction releases by slim
steel cables- hardly thicker than a tiny baby’s little
finger- go hurtling earthward from the open bomb
bays of huge planes to destroy vital enemy
installations or disrupt military movements with
devasting force…the American Steel and Wire
company at 238 Fairmont Avenue is faced with the
problem of supplying the increasing demand
without sufficient help to man the machines.”
Continued on Page 4