SUNDAY, JUNE 25 • GALA BALL (BLACK -TIE

— timeline — continued

workers on numerous public works projects. One such project here in Wallingford was the Census of Old Buildings in Connecticut, also referred to as the WPA Architectural Survey. This project was conducted from 1934 to 1937. Subsequently the photographs, drawings, and hand-written notes produced by this survey were digitized and transcribed and entered into a Connecticut State Library online archive. 1936 - The Barbarino Ponitac dealership opens for business 1936 - Wallingford Steel gives employees 1 week paid vacation, first factory in Wallingford to do so 1936 - The Portuguese Club is started 1937 - The Wlfd.-New Haven Trolley makes its last run. 1937 - Choate School builds a boat house for their rowing team on the shore of the Quniinipac River. 1937 - Major fire destroys M. Backes & Sons factory on S Elm St & Wallace St. 1938 - Hurricane devastates the town 1940 - LHHS State Class “B” Basketball Champions - 1st state championship for Wallingford 1941 - American Cyanamid opens its Wlfd plant, later becomes Cytec & now Allnex 1941 - Pearl Harbor bombed by the Japanese & the start of WW II 1941 - Henry T. Lanouette, killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, is the first of 54 local citizens to die in World War II. 1941 - Hall Brothers Hatchery hatches over 14 million baby chicks for shipment to poultry producers across the U.S. in this its 30th year anniversary year 1942 - William A. MacKenzie Reservoir created along the Muddy River. (Named for the longtime Water Dept. Superintendent.) 1943 - Land for St. Peter & Paul Cemetery is purchased 1943 - 1944 - Casey Stengel’s Boston Braves do their Spring training at Choate’s Winter Exercise Bldg 1944 - The Spanish American Club is started on S. Cherry St. 1944 - Wallingford YMCA is founded by Ferdinand Valenti, Fred Ulbrich, Sr., and George St. John The first member was Fred Ulbrich, Jr. Mid-1940s - In the mid-1940s, a network of interregional highways was laid out for the United States and this included the plans for I-91 to pass through the east side of Wallingford.: 1945 - The Old Gungywamp /Wood-Allyn House,1679, was purchased by Elmer Keith in 1945 and moved from Groton to Clintonville Road. This house was the site of a massacre by the British of the colonists during the Revolutionary War in 1779 at the Battle of Groton. 1945 - Hillcrest Housing Project is built off E Center St. - 1st low-cost housing project in Wallingford to ease a housing shortage brought about by the servicemen returning from WWII. 1945 - The Tracy Post Office closes, & is torn down. 1946 - After the WWII in 1946, the Wilbur Cross Parkway opened the segment from US 5 in Wallingford (Exit 66) to US 5 in Meriden (Exit 68), bypassing the city center. This caused several houses to be moved to other locations in town. 1947 - Thurston Foods opens on North Colony Road 1947 - Gil & Eleanor Kelman establish The Wallingford Post

Saturday, June 25th

8AM - 3 PM GAYLORD GAUNTLET - 5K OBSTACLE COURSE RUN

Gaylord Hospital campus, featuring 400 acres of wooded trail and open field running with natural and man-made obstacles, featuring individuals and teams to benefit Gaylord Sports Association to help their adaptive athletes Website: https://runsignup.com/Race/Events/CT/Wallingford/GaylordGauntlet

11:00 A.M. WALLINGFORD ROTARY CLUB “FLAGS FOR HEROES CEREMONY”

Masonicare, Event Presenter Reserve a flag in honor of your heroes and join hundreds of flags on the hillside lawn at Masonicare from June 14 - July 4. All proceeds support our community through local Rotary projects and grants to community organizations. Website: Flags for Heroes | Rotary District 7980 (rotary7980gives.org)

Jubilee 350+2 Ball & Dinner

Hill House Dining Hall • Sponsor and Host: Choate Rosemary Hall

Ball Committee Members: Betsy McCully (Chairperson) Linda Adamo Marie Canny Charity Kuchyt Julia Lavado Marylou McNamara Patty Pursell Karen Ripa Mary Tiberii Sally Tremaine

BLACK TIE FORMAL

• Cocktails, Dinner and Dancing • Music: New London Big Band, a Steve Bulmer Production • Dinner in the dining hall

Major Sponsor: Choate Rosemary Hall Flowers sponsors: Wallingford Funeral Home Bailey Funeral Home

5:00-6:00 P.M. RECEPTION IN THE ADJOINING STUDENT CENTER 6:00-11:00 P.M. DINNER & DANCING IN THE CHOATE DINING HALL

6 PM - 12 AM OR 8 AM - Depending on interest WALLINGFORD YMCA: KIDS NIGHT OUT

East Side Wallingford YMCA

TIME CAPSULE

The Time Capsule will hold various items representative of the past 50 years in Wallingford. Items will be selected during and after the 350+2 Jubilee. They will be placed in a granite bench which holds a metal vault to house the items. This bench will be located in front of the Town Hall in a special ceremony which will take place in October. Committee Chairperson: MaryBeth Applegate

— timeline — continued

1948 - President Harry Truman speaks from the steps of LHHS 1948 - John McGuire elected to Congress (served 2 terms) 1948 - The Jennings & Griffin factory, a maker of augurs & drill bits, of Tracy burns in a spectacular fire 1948 - Construction began for a $3.5 million steam generating plant. 1949 - In 1949 William Coyle, the town recreation chairman announced a town baseball league would be formed for that year. Over 300 boys tried out for only 72 roster spots. The program was such a success that he filed to have the Wallingford Little League chartered. The first teams in the league were Elks, The Grange, Wallace Silversmiths and Wallingford Silver. The very first games played were July 4, 1949 at Exchange Field - what we now call Community Lake Field. The original league was for all residents of the Town. Yalesville Little League separated into their own league in 1960. 1950 - Town population: 17,000 1950 - The telephone dial system comes to town 1950 - A second wave of Hungarian families move to Wallingford after WWII. 1951 - Moses Y. Beach School replaces 70 year old North Main St. School (previously the Wallingford High School) 1951 - The Putnam School closes after 35 years of private school service to the community. 1952 - An explosion from the Backes factory on Ward St. Ext.shattered windows and tore the tar paper on the roofs of houses along Ward Street Extension and Backes Court. Windows were blown out and one house was reported demolished. 1952 - President Harry Truman, accompanied by his daughter Margaret, spoke briefly at Lyman Hall High School as he canvassed the state for presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson. 1952 - The Wallingford YMCA opens Camp Adahi as its first day camp on Woodhouse Ave. at the top of the S curve. 1952 - Community Pool opens, initially with a sand bottom. 1953 - Robert F. Meyers opens the Yankee Silversmith Inn - a fine restaurant for 50+ years 1953 - Parker Farms Elementary School- built in 1953- is at least the second school of its name, the first being one of the Farm District Schools, which had its roots, perhaps, as early as the late 18th century. The school carries the name of the road on which it is located. 1953 - The elephant, Miss India dies at Mills Bros. Circus and is buried at the airport, now part of the Wallingford Electric Division, by Alfred Audisio. 1954 - The Alfred Pierce Power Plant is put into service. It had three 7500 Kilowatt generators, which served as a major source of energy for Wallingford for three decades. 1954 - Wallace Silver Co. has a street on their property renamed as Lufberry Av. in honor of Raoul Lufbery. The primary speaker was Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s top flying ace of World War I, who flew with Major Lufbery. 1954 - Harold Grannucci starts Strand Furniture in the old Strand Theater @ Center & N. Orchard Sts. He later moves the business to S. Broad St. 1954 - The Oakdale Theater was founded by Ben Segal and Bob Hall in 1954. At this time, the theatre was an open-air, theatre in the round with seating for 1,400. It was located in an alfalfa field near the Oakdale Tavern and was open seasonally for summer stock musicals. A wood dome erected in 1972 provided a more permanent structure for the theater and coincided with an increase in seating capacity to 3,200. In 1996, the Oakdale abandoned the theater-in-the-round concept for a more traditional staging arrangement. It turned the old stage area into a spacious lobby and increased its seating capacity to 4,600. 1955 - Debbie Basketball League started by Robert Gannon for 4th to 8th grade girls 1955 - The elaborate Judd Mansion/ Phelps School was torn down to make room for the Lyman Hall HS 1955 - The Wallingford Rotary Club was started

Wallingford Black Smith 1890

Children stand on top of and around Miss India, a circus elephant that was buried in Wallingford in July 1953. The photo was taken by Ralph D. Habersang, a firefighter who retired as fire chief in 1976. Courtesy of Mark Habersang

Legends continued from page 27

Audisio died in 1998 at the age of 88. His grandson and local resident Jerry Farrell Jr. told the Record-Journal in 2017 that his grandfather never wanted to stir up a lot of interest in the elephant out of fear someone would attempt to dig her up, so he and his grandfather kept the exact location secret.

Community Lake founders were old-school hippies

Today, Community Lake Park is a 9-acre property off Hall Avenue featuring a picnic pavilion with a fireplace, a playground, sports fields, and the southern entrance to the Quinnipiac River Linear Trail.

The origins of the park, situated on what’s left of the lake after a 1979 dam breach drained it, are the stuff of legend. The name comes from the Oneida Community, a religious commune that expanded into Wallingford in 1851 when a local farmer invited founder John Humphrey Noyes to establish a new community on 228 acres of his property, where Masonicare is presently located, according to a 2015 Record-Journal story. Noyes believed in the idea of Christian perfectionism, which did not recognize private ownership. They also embraced a form of free love they called “complex marriage,” today called open marriage. The community initially began farming fruit, expanded into printing and eventually built a silver company — Oneida Silverware — at what is now Amphenol on Hall Avenue.

A dam, built across the Quinnipiac River to power the silver plant, created Community Lake. A number of factors contributed to the decline of the Oneida Community: competition from Wallace Silversmiths, the rise of Victorian-era morals, the death or defection of members.

The deadly tornado of 1878 was another blow. It began over Community Lake, the waterspout sweeping up Daniel O’Reilly, the town’s first police chief, who was fishing on the lake. O’Reilly survived after he was thrown hundreds of feet onto the shore.

The Oneida Community in Wallingford dissolved in 1881, its remaining members returning to New York, where they founded the Oneida silverware company which still operates today. In the 1960s, the town purchased the land for $1 from the International Silver Co. A series of dredged ponds remains today, with the Quinnipiac River snaking between them.

Legends continued on page 49