Springfield

Understand

Springfield is a former industrial town on the Black River near the Connecticut River and the New Hampshire border.

Parks and Woolson first began turning out machinery in the 1830s to finish cloth, using the Black River as a source of power. Springfield struggled through a flood which demolished the town in 1869 and a fire which burned much of it in 1880. Jones & Lamson, manufacturer (at various times) of everything from rifles to rotary pumps and sewing machines, moved from Windsor to Springfield in 1888. During World War II, local industry played a strategic role as manufacturers of machine tools. At one point, four manufacturers with 4000 workers called Springfield's Precision Valley home.

Many of the industries were purchased by larger, outside firms in the 1950s and 1960s; they were plagued by costly labor strikes in the 1970s and began to decline as foreign rivals embraced automation and computerization in the 1980s. J&L, Fellows Gear Shaper and Bryant Chucking Grinder all eventually went out of business, leaving the community a shadow of its former self.

Get in

By car

• Springfield is on Interstate 91 (exit seven), US Route 5 and various state highways.

By bus

• Greyhound and Amtrak stations are in Bellows Falls, about 10 miles (16 km) to the south.

Get around