Granby, Connecticut — A Model Town

As a result of the Jan. 6, 1917 fire that destroyed the South Church and Town Library, the Salmon Brook Street community was fully ready to implement their vision of a traditional New England village. The congregational annual meeting was held on Jan. 12, 1917, just six days after the fire.

Action began immediately and within days the $5,600 insurance was collected, by May 7 the building committee agreed on a design and hired H. Wales Lines Company of Meriden, Conn. to begin construction on May 29, 1917.

On June 26, 1918 the new church was dedicated and at which time a Hartford paper reported: The land around the completed buildings has been graded and seeded and surroundings will be fine when seen next Wednesday and visitors will realize that Granby has as complete a set of (reconstructed) buildings as can be found in any New England village. By 1919, even the school was completed and served to round out the beautiful grouping, which remain to this day.

Even with the center construction completed, there were still a few missing elements to complete an ideal country village. Recent experience taught that a volunteer fire department was needed and so in 1921, the Salmon Brook Lighting District formed one and furnished it with a 50 gallon soda-ash extinguisher on wheels.

The year 1921 also introduced the first parent-teacher organization in the community. Granby was becoming an exciting and unique community and while it continued to feature the only agricultural fairground in Hartford County, still one important element remained elusive...

In 1917 Granby’s only physician, Dr. V. J. Irwin Jr. left to join the army. Feeling a New England village could not be complete without a doctor, the Men’s Community League commenced a search and was able to recruit Dr. Ernest R. Pendleton, a surgeon who had been practicing in Massachusetts.

He was the perfect choice because he not only came to Granby and opened an office but with the help of the Men’s League, a year later set up a complete hospital with an operating room, beds and an X-ray machine! In 1923 he added a new wing which was able to bring the total number of beds to 27.

It was that year that Salmon Brook Street achieved its dream. The U.S. Department of Agriculture featured Granby in its Bulletin on Rural Planning. It stated in the report it hoped that rural planning would do for small towns what it had done for America’s cities and gave a number of outstanding examples throughout the nation including Granby, Conn.

The Street, with its Town Green and Civil War memorial, electric lights, running water,  “well-kept” cemetery, “fire apparatus,” hospital and cluster of other new public buildings, was designated a “Model Town."

In focusing on the Street, the Agricultural Department placed the emphasis on the aesthetic, that is, all the characteristics the early twentieth century middle-class American felt were typical of the ideal New England village.

Granby had done it all in good form at last and with hardly any money taken from the town treasury! Perhaps it is not coincidental that in 1923, the South Church settled a new pastor, Dr. Arthur Teale, who unlike any previous minister, stayed for 37 years.

In 1934 the congregation awarded Dr. Teale's service with the construction of a lovely "center hall - garrison colonial" parsonage. The revival architecture is classic, which only added to the charm of the New England village in which it was set.  It seems that what was considered ideal had at last become real for Granby, Connecticut.

All material selected from Mark Williams book, A Tempest in a Small Town.