Windham, Connecticut: Thread City and the Frog Fight

Windham was incorporated in 1692, its original territory taking in what are now Mansfield and Scotland plus parts of Chaplin and Hampton; it took its present shape in 1857, when the last of those areas split off. Willimantic, the borough within Windham, became "Thread City": the Willimantic Linen Company, founded in 1854, had grown by the 1880s into four granite mills employing about a thousand workers. In 1899 British and Scottish interests took control as the American Thread Company, and a 1912 strike organized by Industrial Workers of the World members preceded a 1914 federal antitrust action that separated it from Scottish ownership; the granite mill still stands. Willimantic's city government dissolved in 1983 and consolidated with Windham. One night in June 1754, a severe drought had concentrated bullfrogs into the area's last pond, and townspeople terrified by their nighttime battle fired muskets into the dark — the "Windham Frog Fight," now commemorated by four frog sculptures by Leo Jensen atop the Thread City Crossing bridge, opened in 2000.

Windham/Willimantic is reached on state highways rather than an interstate: most visitors come off I-84 from the Hartford/Tolland side or I-395 from the Norwich/Plainfield side, finishing on US Route 6 (the Willimantic Bypass), Route 32, Route 66 or Route 195. No interstate directly serves Windham — a 1960s plan to extend I-84 through Willimantic toward Providence was abandoned. Willimantic station has had no active passenger service since Amtrak's Montrealer ended in 1995; the CTrail Hartford Line and Shore Line East both run well west and south of Windham County, so the closest rail boarding points are Hartford or New London. Windham Region Transit District buses cover Willimantic and connect to Storrs/UConn, Norwich and Danielson.