Virjune Manufacturing Co: Inside Waterbury's Vacant Factory

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J and I were already having a rough day. We'd just driven across town to check out an old industrial site he hadn't visited in a while, only to find it erased. Nothing left but a slab of concrete and chain-link fence. So we took a detour. Sometimes you salvage a disappointing afternoon with a backup plan, even if you're just ticking a box. The former Virjune plant hides in plain sight off Thomaston Avenue. If you drive past in summer, you'll miss it completely. Trees and shrubs swallow the building whole, nature reclaiming what industry left behind. Come winter, though, when the branches go bare and the world turns gray, the red brick skeleton reveals itself. Even then, you have to know where to look. I pulled up old Sanborn maps to trace the building's history. The earliest tenant was an auto body shop in 1922. By February 1950, something bigger had moved in. The map labels it simply "Stamping Wks." No company name. No flourish. Just function. That namele...
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The Smallish Mill




A rather unique mill that sits alongside a busy road. This mill offered unblemished interiors not found for something so wide open and sitting by the wayside alongside a busy thoroughfare. Based on the historical information, this mill once had a fire 91 years from this dated post and rebuilt with fire-resistant bricks. The building which sits on 1.8 acres of land will see 100 years in 9 short years if no buyers bite on this unique property that once manufactured household construction materials.









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