Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District - Significance

Significance

According to the district's 1987 nomination document:

The district is historically significant for two reasons. First its core encompasses the extensive surviving portions of the industrial complex developed by the former Winchester Repeating Arms Company, one of the nation's foremost late 19th- and early 20th-century armament manufacturers. Second, the district as a whole forms New Haven's most nearly intact and cohesive surviving example of the inherent relationship between the growth of modern industry and the emergence of large working-class residential neighborhoods, a relationship typically associated with the development of many of the nation's northeastern urban communities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Criterion A). The district is architecturally significant for three reasons. First, its core embraces numerous examples of period industrial structures. Second, the majority of these structures were built for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company according to designs provided by Leoni W. Robinson, one of New Haven's premier late 19/early 20th-century architects. Finally, the district's predominantly residential perimeter areas encompass a host of relatively intact single- and multi-family workers' houses as well as several significant examples of commercial, religious, and municipal buildings dating from this same era. As a group, these perimeter-area buildings represent a variety of important and popular vernacular architectural styles of the era, including late Greek Revival, Italianate, Gothic Revival, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival (Criterion C).