Mattatuck Manufacturing Company

If you stand at the corner of Southmayd Road and East Main Street in Waterbury today, you will not hear the clatter of heavy machinery. You will not hear the sharp blast of a factory whistle cutting through the afternoon air. Instead, you will see a senior center, an outpatient hospital annex, and a funeral home. It is a quiet corner of the city, dedicated to rest, healing, and memory.

Yet beneath the clean pavement and tidy lawns lies the ghost of an industrial giant.

For more than a century, this ground belonged to the Mattatuck Manufacturing Company, known simply to generations of locals as Mattaco. 

The story began in 1886, when Henry L. Wade organized the company with an initial capital investment of $225,000. That was a massive sum for the era. Wade used it to raise two imposing four-story mill buildings, each measuring 150 by 44 feet. Alongside the plant, the company built seven model houses for its workers. In the center courtyard, a stone fountain bubbled, offering a rare touch of grace in the middle of a gritty industrial neighborhood.

Before long, the factory was operating day and night. Neighbors grew used to the constant, rhythmic hum of metal presses vibrating through the ground. Mattatuck made the small brass and wire items that quietly held everyday American life together. They produced upholstery nails, wire forms, spring bed fabrics, and screw machine parts. If a shopkeeper rang up a sale on a cash register, or a child rolled a toy truck across the living room rug, chances are Mattatuck made the metal pieces inside.

They also mastered the business of restraint. The company secured several patents for handcuffs and leg irons, selling them to police departments all over the world. The restraints were so reliable that the great illusionist Harry Houdini regularly used Mattatuck cuffs in his famous escape acts, knowing that if he could pick their locks, he would truly dazzle the crowd.

When World War II broke out, the factory answered the call to arms. Workers quickly retooled their lines, shifting from decorative upholstery nails to cartridge clips for the military Springfield rifle. At the height of the war, more than 500 employees turned out as many as three million clips every single week. Longtime residents still recall the 5 p.m. whistle that signaled the end of the day, sending hundreds of tired men and women out into the streets to head home to their families.

By the late twentieth century, the tide had turned. Rising operating costs and relentless foreign competition battered the Brass City. In 1992, after more than a century of steady production, the plant shut down its operations for good.

The massive brick complex stood abandoned for a decade, slowly decaying under the elements. In 2002, the city finally demolished the buildings. But the land was not ready for new construction. It took another ten years and a roughly $6 million cleanup effort, funded by property owner Gilbert Boutin in partnership with the city, to remove the industrial residue left behind.

In 2013, the site officially found its second act when the Waterbury senior center opened its doors. 

There is an unexpected symmetry to how this corner of Waterbury evolved. Decades ago, Mattaco produced the metal springs people slept on, the toys children treasured, and the ammunition clips young soldiers carried overseas. It was an engine of vigor, labor, and youth. Today, that same soil provides care for citizens in the twilight of life. The machines have stopped, and the shift whistle has faded into memory, but the ground still belongs to the people who built it.

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Source(s): 

  

1. Puffer, M. (2019, June 3). One problem with empty, blighted buildings? Knowing how many there are. Hartford Business Journal. https://hartfordbusiness.com/article/one-problem-with-empty-blighted-buildings-knowing-how-many-there-are/

2. (1956) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Waterbury, New Haven County, Connecticut. Sanborn Map Company, Republished 1956; Vol. 3. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn01192_011/

3. Electric car manufacturer backs out of move to state. (1994, July 29). Hartford Courant. https://www.courant.com/1994/07/29/electric-car-manufacturer-backs-out-of-move-to-state/

4. Waterbury History Page. (n.d.). Here's another employee identification button/photo, this one from The Mattatuck Manufacturing Company [Post]. Facebook. Retrieved September 13, 2026, from https://www.facebook.com/100076875772143/posts/534179322487922/