A Walking Tour of Bridgeport, Connecticut

There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. This walking tour of Bridgeport, Connrcticut is ready to explore when you are. Each walking tour describes historical, architectural landmarks, cultural sites and ecclesiastic touchstones and provides step-by-step directions.

Every tour also includes a quick primer on identifying architectural styles seen on American streets.

In spite of a slow start, Bridgeport grew into the most populous city in Connecticut. The first settlers wandered over from the neighboring coastal towns of Fairfield and Stratford in 1639 but the city would not be incorporated for another 200 years. The city’s location on the deep Black Rock Harbor fostered a boom in shipbuilding and whaling in the mid-19th century, especially after the opening of a railroad to the city in 1840. In fact, every census report for the next 100 years showed at least a 40% increase in population each decade.

By the 1930s Bridgeport hosted some 500 manufacturing firms churning out almost any product imaginable. Ammunition, chains, rubber goods, typewriters, scissors, toys, hardware, cables, engines, phonograph records, brake linings, sewing machines all shipped from Bridgeport. The first “horseless carriage,” equipped with hard rubber tires and a self-starter, was built here in the early 1890s. The town’s manufacturing base was so diverse it never became known for any one industry.

If Bridgeport was known for anything, it was as the adopted home of America’s greatest showman of the 19th century, P.T. Barnum. Barnum not only moved to town, he served a term as mayor in 1875. Our walking tour will explore the downtown core in an area corralled by the Pequonnock River, I-95 and Highway 8 at the site of an event that was probably much forgotten in Bridgeport a week after in happened on Saturday March 10, 1860, but is still remembered today...