The Bristol Brass Corp. Mill 88.

The Bristol Brass Corp. Mill 88.

View, as if through a scope, of a massive steel, brick and glass industrial complex with a low gable roof topped by a monitor running the length of the roof. An even larger similar block is connected to it at the left. Large scale letters mounted on a scaffold on the roof identify the plant. A very high smokestack rises above the back of the complex. A set of railroad tracks passes in the foreground. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. The Bristol Brass Works, begun as a clockworks in 1850 in partnership with Naugatuck Valley brass entrepreneurs, concentrated its focus exclusively on brass production around 1890. The structures in the image, probably part of the brass alloy rolling mill, are from the company's expansion to aid the military effort during WWI. [source: Clouette and Roth, "Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites"]