Waterbury Button Company
Sifting through the digital dust of my archives often feels like a treasure hunt. But sometimes, you find what’s missing instead of what’s there. That’s what happened recently as I revisited photos from my early days, back when I was constantly on the road, exploring the forgotten corners of the Northeast with my trusty Canon T3i. I clicked through folder after folder of decaying interiors, and a frustrating pattern emerged: I seldom photographed the outside of these places.
It’s a rookie mistake that haunts me now. How could I have ignored the very skin of these buildings? I see it so clearly today: the story starts on the outside. It’s in the faded, ghost-white letters of a company name clinging to a red brick wall, a signpost to a world that no longer exists. Many of those walls are gone now, victims of demolition by neglect, the black scars of arson, or the sanitized sweep of redevelopment. I missed my chance to capture their final words.
I suppose my compositional "third eye" was still developing back then. I was so focused on the secrets inside that I failed to see the full picture. This truth hit me hard when I stumbled upon the files from Waterbury, Connecticut. It was a two-for-one trip that day. My friend J and I had just finished exploring the old Anamet Complex and decided to cross the street to poke around the former Waterbury Companies buildings.
My photos from inside are a jumble of what you’d expect: heaps of junk, tangled plastic cabling, and graffiti splashed across crumbling walls. I remember the smell of past arson and the unsettling quiet. Yet, my collection from that day feels incomplete, hollow. My memory of the visit is vague, like a dream you can’t quite hold onto. Looking at the few pictures I took, I mostly wonder what I missed.
A few days ago, I found out. I came across a post on an old website, Antiquity Echoes, that showcased the very same complex. The photographer had explored a different section, one I never even tried to enter, though it was apparently wide open during my time. Their photos revealed incredible spaces I’d completely overlooked. Seeing what I had missed was a gut punch. Why didn’t I walk a few more feet? Why didn’t I document more?
I don’t have a good answer. Maybe we were tired, headed to another location, or maybe I just didn’t have the foresight I do now. Looking back, I see not a failure but a lesson. Those missing exteriors, those unexplored rooms, they taught me that a story has many perspectives. My job is to capture as many as I can before they vanish forever.
If you stand on the high bluff where the abandoned Holy Land theme park crumbles, you can see the skeleton of Waterbury, Connecticut. Below, the city’s industrial backbone lies broken, its brick-red factories jutting out from the skyline like weathered bones. This is the heart of the Naugatuck Valley, a place that was once forged in brass. The factories replaced the tall marsh grasses that once lined the riverbanks, their smokestacks becoming the new forest.
It’s hard to imagine that this sprawling industrial landscape, a testament to American manufacturing power, all started with something small enough to fit in your pocket: a button.
The story begins not in a massive factory, but in a small workshop. In 1790, three brothers named Henry, Silas, and Samuel Grilley started making simple buttons from tin and pewter. It was humble work, but they were ambitious. Two years later, they began crafting buttons from shiny sheet brass imported all the way from England. This was the spark.
Real innovation arrived in 1802 when Silas Grilley partnered with a few other local men to form Abel Porter & Company. They faced a major challenge. With Britain controlling the supply, high-quality brass was expensive and hard to get. So, they decided to make their own. They gathered local scrap copper, melted it down, and fused it with zinc that still had to be shipped from England. This process, likely the first of its kind to succeed in the United States, was a game-changer. They cast the molten brass into ingots, rolled them into thin sheets, and stamped out buttons that gleamed like gold.
These early button makers were the pioneers of the entire brass industry in the region. Their breakthrough came just in time. When the War of 1812 broke out, the United States military needed a reliable source for uniform buttons. They turned to Waterbury. That contract supercharged the city’s growth, cementing its identity as the Brass City. From that single, shining button, an empire of metal was born.
 |
| Bray's Buckle Dam. |
 |
| Photo courtesy of Waterbury History Page Waterbury Button Company factory inundated by flood waters during the disastrous Flood of ‘55. The tracks you see in the foreground are a fragment of a much larger story. They belonged to the Waterbury-Meriden & Connecticut River Railroad, a line that in its prime stretched all the way to Cromwell. But its reach began to shrink around 1922, when the section between East Farms in Waterbury and South Cheshire was dismantled. The line was shortened again after World War II, eventually reduced to a small segment serving Hamilton Park and West Main Street in Meriden. |
Long before Jack and Rose found love and tragedy on the silver screen, a small but essential part of their world was being forged in Waterbury, Connecticut. The polished brass buttons on the crew uniforms of the ill-fated Titanic were not just fasteners; they were tiny emblems of a city’s colossal ambition. They were products of the Waterbury Button Company, a business whose story is, in many ways, the story of American industry itself.
It all began in the fertile period between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. As the young nation found its footing, a cluster of brass mills began to spring up around Waterbury. Their initial purpose was practical, even humble. They churned out brass gears for the booming local clock-making trade in nearby Thomaston and Terryville. During the revolution, they had already begun producing uniform buttons, but it was the conflict of 1812 that truly cemented the city’s destiny. By supplying vast quantities of brass and pewter buttons to the United States Infantry and Navy, Waterbury forged its identity as the button-making capital of the country, a title it would hold for more than 150 years. To glimpse this legacy, one needs only visit the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, where a dazzling display of over 10,000 buttons tells a silent, shimmering history.
Out of this button boom rose a giant. In 1812, a man named Aaron Benedict founded a small button manufacturing shop. His specialty was a brilliant gilt button, made by brushing brass with a delicate mixture of gold and mercury. His little venture, first known as the A. Benedict Company and later the Benedict and Coe Company grew at an astonishing pace. It would eventually become the Benedict and Burnham Company, one of the largest brass producers in the entire region.
A century after its founding, the company’s craftsmanship adorned the crew of the Titanic. In a poignant echo of history, when director James Cameron set out to recreate the ship for his 1997 classic film, the very same company was called upon to reproduce the buttons, linking a modern blockbuster to a historic tragedy.
But to think of Benedict and Burnham as just a button maker would be to miss the restless spirit of innovation that defined it. By the 1820s, the factory floors were humming with the production of all sorts of consumer goods, from furniture, hardware, and pins to elegant lamps. The company was a mirror of a changing America, adapting to every new demand. In 1847, the button division formally split off, merging with Festus Hayden and Sons to create the Waterbury Button Company we know today.
This new entity was a company of curiosities. As the 19th century progressed, it embraced a dizzying array of products. It manufactured insulated electric wire, a crucial component for a world being electrified. It made plastic checkers and dominoes for family game nights, streetcar tokens for the daily commute, and even toys. In the 1890s, it introduced the “Climbing Monkey,” a simple metal toy that became a beloved classic. Its ambition even took to the skies. In 1929, the company built an experimental airplane called the “Multiplane,” a testament to its fearless ingenuity.
 |
| Waterbury Button Company is in the right corner, whilst across the street lies the behemoth Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Company, also known as the Anamet Complex (Anamet Inc) in the future. You can see the former Waterbury-Meriden & Connecticut River Railroad traversing the property and over the Mad River before being dismantled later on, and an iron and wood bridge takes its place between the two brass companies. |
 |
| Boiler room. |
The company was also a pioneer in materials. When high-end ivory buttons became fashionable in the late 19th century, it established supply chains reaching into Africa, South America, and the South Pacific. And as revolutionary materials like celluloid and Bakelite emerged around 1870, the company immediately saw their potential. These new plastics were molded into everything from electrical goods to the lenses for gas masks and, during World War II, the fuses for bombs. The factory’s production capabilities swelled during the war, and its name was updated to reflect its broad scope: Waterbury Companies Inc.
Beyond the products, the company’s history offers a fascinating window into the lives of its workers. In an era when heavy brass mills were almost exclusively the domain of men, the button industry was different. The work of polishing and assembling the intricate two-piece buttons was considered light manufacturing, and the Waterbury Button Company employed a significant number of women.
The factory was also at the center of national debate. During World War I, when the company was the largest supplier of military buttons in the nation, a wave of public outrage followed a War Department decision. A contract to produce hats and lapel ornaments for uniforms was awarded to an English firm instead of the hometown hero. Later, in September 1938, the factory fell silent as members of the Waterbury Brass Workers Union went on strike for higher pay. The dispute was eventually settled by the state’s labor commissioner, who brokered a deal that included overtime bonuses and a week of paid vacation, though the hourly rate remained unchanged.
After the war, the company continued its pattern of reinvention, branching out into vinyl records, fiberglass tubs, breadboxes, and even air filtration systems. In 1994, it acquired another historic Connecticut business, the Cheshire Ball and Socket Manufacturing Co.
The story took another turn in 2000 when Waterbury Companies Inc. was itself acquired by OGS Technologies Inc. A couple of years later, the factory left its historic home in Waterbury and moved to a modern facility in nearby Cheshire, where it operates today.
Yet the legacy endures. The company still proudly manufactures buttons for every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, just as it did two centuries ago. It also crafts custom buttons for some of the world’s most renowned fashion designers. It’s a quiet reminder that sometimes the biggest stories are held together by the smallest things. From the battlefields of 1812 to the decks of the Titanic and the runways of Paris, the story of Waterbury proves that a simple button is never just a button. It’s a piece of history.
Where a factory once stood, a field of rubble now lies under an open sky. The fire of May 2023 was a final, destructive end to a long-abandoned industrial site, leaving a visible scar on the landscape. But the true danger isn't just the twisted metal and shattered brick. A more sinister problem lurks beneath the surface, a toxic legacy baked into the soil.
Long before the flames, a 2016 environmental investigation revealed the ground was saturated with a dangerous cocktail of industrial poisons. The list reads like a recipe for a nightmare: PCBs, volatile organic compounds, lead, and mercury are just a few of the contaminants that have seeped into the property over decades of neglect. The fire didn't just destroy a building; it potentially disturbed and spread these hidden threats.
Yet, from these ashes, a new vision for Waterbury is beginning to rise. The city has marked this ruined parcel as a top priority within its ambitious Mad River Redevelopment Corridor project. Armed with nine million dollars in state and federal funding, the plan is not just to clean up the mess, but to completely transform it. The goal is to create a vibrant mixed-use space, a neighborhood where new homes and commercial businesses can flourish, providing jobs and breathing life back into the property and its neighbor, the former Anamet complex.
This effort is part of a much larger battle Waterbury has been waging for over a decade. The city is dotted with the skeletons of its industrial past. These massive factory complexes, once the powerful engines of American prosperity, fell silent and slowly decayed. They became unsightly firetraps, magnets for illegal dumping, vandalism, and other crimes that cast a shadow over the community.
Waterbury has made real progress, tearing down some of the most blighted structures and repurposing the land into much-needed parking lots, new businesses, and public parks. But those were the easier wins. The true challenge has always been figuring out what to do with the most contaminated and complex sites. Getting these industrial graveyards back into productive use, transforming them from liabilities into assets, is the difficult, essential work that will define the city’s future.
Source(s):
1. Puffer, M. (2023, November 9). Waterbury in line for $3.1M grant to cleanup polluted factory site. Hartford Business Journal. https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/waterbury-in-line-for-31m-grant-to-cleanup-polluted-factory-site-0
2. Puffer, M. (2022, June 2). Top state, federal officials celebrate $7M in new brownfield funding for CT at blighted Waterbury site. Hartford Business Journal. https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/top-state-federal-officials-celebrate-7m-in-new-brownfield-funding-for-ct-at-blighted
3. Muce, S. (2023, March 21). Housing and historic preservation advocates clash over legislation adding a workaround for demolitions. CT Examiner. https://ctexaminer.com/2023/03/21/housing-and-historic-preservation-advocates-clash-over-legislation-adding-a-workaround-for-demolitions/
4. Anderson, J., Prichard, S. J., & Ward, A. L. (1896). The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five. New Haven, CT: Price and Lee Co.
5. Bronson, H. (1858). The history of Waterbury, Connecticut; the original township embracing present Watertown and Plymouth, and parts of Oxford, Wolcott, Middlebury, Prospect and Naugatuck. Waterbury, CT: Bronson Bros.
6. Pape, W. J. (1918). History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut. Chicago, IL & New York, NY: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company.
7. Kelley, E. M. (1954). The business founding date directory. Scarsdale, NY: Morgan & Morgan.
8. Hardaway, L. & LaBella, J. (2023, May 29). Waterbury fire at factory on South Main St. injured 2 firefighters. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/waterbury-fire-factory-south-main-st-injured-18124325.php
9. Roth, M., et al. (1981). Connecticut: An inventory of historic engineering and industrial sites. Washington, DC: Society for Industrial Archeology.
10. Howe, E. T. (n.d.). The fairies and pixies of Marblehead, Mass. New England Historical Society. Retrieved September 21, 2025, from https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-fairies-and-pixies-of-marblehead-mass/
11. Antiquity Echoes. (2019, October 31). Waterbury brass. Blogspot. https://antiquityechoes.blogspot.com/2019/10/waterbury-brass.html
12. (1890) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Waterbury, New Haven County, Connecticut. Sanborn Map Company, Aug. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn01192_002/.
13. Lavin, L., & Stewart, R. (1999, April). Archaeological assessment of dams within the Naugatuck River Basin anadromous fish restoration project. American Cultural Specialists.
Comments
Post a Comment