Editing Milford, Connecticut (section)

==History==

===Early history===

[[File:Eells-Stow House -- Milford, CT.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Eells-Stow House]], {{circa|1700}}, is believed to be the oldest extant house in Milford.]]

When the English first encountered the territory, the [[Paugusset]] (an [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian-speaking]] tribe) predominated. English colonists affiliated with the contemporary [[New Haven Colony]] purchased land which today comprises Milford, [[Orange, Connecticut|Orange]], and [[West Haven, Connecticut|West Haven]] on February 1, 1639, from Ansantawae, chief of the local Paugusset. They knew the area as ''Wepawaug,'' named for [[Wepawaug River|the small river]] which runs through the town. The English built a grist mill by the Wepawaug River in 1640.<ref name="Early Milford">{{cite journal|last1=Greene|first1=M. Louise|title=Early Milford|journal=The Connecticut Magazine|date=March 1899|volume=V|issue=3}}</ref> Streets in Milford and Orange were later named "Wepawaug".

During the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]], the Milford section of the [[Boston Post Road]], a vital route connecting [[Boston]], [[New York City|New York]], and other major coastal cities, was blockaded by [[Continental Army|Continental forces]]. Fort Trumbull was constructed to protect the town. The Liberty Rock monument commemorates the site of the blockade.

By 1822, the [[New England town|town]] had grown large enough that residents in Milford's northern and eastern sections chartered the Town of Orange. During the next century and a half, the remaining section of Milford was known for shipbuilding, farming, and oystering. Industrial facilities were also developed.

Because of its location on Long Island Sound, Milford became a [[beach resort]] for residents of New Haven and [[Bridgeport, Connecticut|Bridgeport]] in the latter 19th century.

In 1899, the "Memorial Bridge" (a "stone bridge and tower commemorating the town's history and founders")<ref>{{cite journal|last1=South Central Regional Council of Governments|title=#5 Milford Center Historic Walk|journal=Milford Center Historic Walk|date=1991}}</ref> replaced the last mill over the Wepawaug, which had closed in 1894.<ref name="Early Milford" /> The bridge was described as "simple in design, its broad copings surmounted with rough hewn blocks of granite, bearing the names of the first settlers. There are ten blocks on the south and twenty on the north coping. At each end of the former is a stone four feet wide by five and a half high."<ref name="Early Milford" />  It is located where Broad Street crosses the Wepawaug River.

In 1903, the southeastern portion of the town was incorporated as the Borough of [[Woodmont, Connecticut|Woodmont]]. In 1959, the Town of Milford, including the Borough of Woodmont, was incorporated as the City of Milford.
[[File:Milford Connecticut old bridge.jpg|thumb|left|View of Milford's greens on a 19th-century naïve landscape painting]]

===Towns created from Milford===
Milford was one of the early settlements in south central Connecticut and, over time, gave rise to several new [[New England town|towns]] that broke off and incorporated separately. The following is a list of towns created from parts of Milford.

* [[Woodbridge, Connecticut|Woodbridge]] in 1784 (also partly from [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]])
** [[Bethany, Connecticut|Bethany]], created from Woodbridge in 1832
* [[Orange, Connecticut|Orange]] (originally North Milford) in 1822 (also partly from New Haven)
** [[West Haven, Connecticut|West Haven]], created from Orange in 1921

===The "oatmeal lots" of Liberty Park===
Starting in 1902, [[Quaker Oats]] oatmeal boxes came with a coupon redeemable for the legal deed to a tiny lot in Milford. The lots, sometimes as small as {{convert|10|ft|0}} by 10 feet, were carved out of a {{convert|15|acre|adj=on}} tract in a never-built subdivision called "Liberty Park". A small number of children (or their parents), often residents living near Milford, collected the deeds and started paying the extremely small property taxes on the "oatmeal lots". The developer of the prospective subdivision hoped the landowners would hire him to build homes on the lots, although several lots would need to be combined before building could start. Since the subdivision into small lots predated Milford's planning and zoning regulations, the deeds were entirely legal, although they created a large amount of paperwork for town tax collectors, who frequently couldn't find the property owners and received almost no tax revenue from the lots.<ref name="fnolg">{{Cite news |last=Juliano |first=Frank |url=http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Oatmeal-lots-gave-officials-indigestion-687006.php |title='Oatmeal lots' gave officials indigestion |pages=A1, A12 |date=October 3, 2010 |access-date=October 23, 2010 |newspaper=[[Connecticut Post]] |archive-date=February 5, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205005709/http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Oatmeal-lots-gave-officials-indigestion-687006.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>[[Image:BarberJohnWarnerOysterHutsMilfordPoint.jpg|thumb|right|''Oyster Huts on Milford Point'', a sketch by [[John Warner Barber]] for his ''Historical Collections of Connecticut'' (1836). Barber wrote that he found 15 or 20 of these seaweed-covered huts along the shore when he visited the town in 1836.]]

In the mid-1970s, when the town wanted to develop the area, town officials put an end to the oatmeal lots in a "general foreclosure" that avoided the enormous expense of individual foreclosures by condemning nearly all of the property in one legal filing. One of the streets in the Liberty Park subdivision plans, Shelland Street, was later built in the late 1990s as an access road to the Milford Power Company. The site is currently home to the [[Société Bic|Bic Corporation]]'s [[lighter]] factory at 565 Bic Drive.

In a separate land giveaway in 1955 tied to the ''[[Sergeant Preston of the Yukon]]'' television show, Quaker Oats offered in its [[Puffed Wheat]] and [[Puffed Rice]] cereal boxes genuine deeds to land in the [[Klondike, Yukon|Klondike]].<ref name="fnolg" />

===Post-World War II development===
In the post-[[World War II]] period, Milford—like many Connecticut towns—underwent significant suburbanization. [[Interstate 95 in Connecticut|Interstate 95]] was routed through the city, and the Milford section was completed in 1958.

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the construction of the [[Connecticut Post Mall]], one of the state's largest shopping malls, and the extensive commercial development of the town's stretch of the [[Boston Post Road]]. One notable small business located on the Boston Post Road during the 1970s was [[SCELBI]] Computer Consulting, credited by many as being the world's first personal-computer manufacturer. Starting in 1975, the city began hosting the [[Milford Oyster Festival]], which has since become firmly established as an annual Milford tradition that is held "rain or shine".<ref>"[http://dailypostal.com/2010/08/21/milford-oyster-festival-2010/ Milford Oyster Festival 2010]." ''Daily Postal''. August 21, 2010</ref><ref name="misur2010">Misur, Susan. "[http://www.newhavenregister.com/articles/2010/08/22/news/milford/doc4c70a51c00ba8527828365.txt Annual Oyster Festival draws thousands in Milford] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306215457/http://www.newhavenregister.com/articles/2010/08/22/news/milford/doc4c70a51c00ba8527828365.txt |date=2012-03-06 }}." ''New Haven Register''. Sunday, August 22, 2010</ref>

The city became host to several headquarters of multinational corporations, including the [[Schick (razors)|Schick]] Shaving company,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.schick.com/us/shaving-history.shtml |title=Schick® &#124; Shaving History |publisher=Schick.com |access-date=May 19, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130325040341/http://www.schick.com/us/shaving-history.shtml |archive-date=March 25, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and Doctor's Associates, Inc., owners of the [[Subway (restaurant)|Subway]] chain of fast-food restaurants. The US operations of [[Société Bic|BIC]] were headquartered in Milford, but in March 2008 moved most of its operations to [[Shelton, Connecticut|Shelton]]. [[Milford Hospital (Connecticut)|Milford Hospital]] has also developed into an important health care resource for the area.