There had been a plan for a new industry, making ergonomic products, on Route 7. Has Ridgefield had many factories in the past?
The town has had factories since it was founded 300 years ago. The first were the mills that ground grain and sawed wood. Later, there were woolen and plaster mills. Not to mention the cider mills that produced the local alcoholic beverages.
The first large factory was probably The Big Shop, built around 1830 on the site of the present First Congregational Church. It housed a carriage factory and other small industries. Carriages that were made there were sold as far away as New Orleans.
To make way for the new church, the Big Shop was moved around 1888 to north of Bailey Avenue where, long ago repurposed, it today houses several businesses, including Luc’s and TerraSole restaurants.
The Bridgeport Wood Finishing Company’s silex plant in Branchville. That belching smokestack wouldn’t go over well today.
In the late 1800s, Branchville became Ridgefield’s factory district. The town’s biggest factory was the Branchville Silex Mills, owned by the Bridgeport Wood Finishing Company. Here, quartz — basically, the same material as sand — was ground into a fine powder, called silex, that was used as a pigment or filler in paints and stains. The quartz was obtained from the nearby Branchville quarry and probably from more distant mining operations as well, arriving and departing by train.
The silex buildings stood along the tracks north of the present train station. Some were also on the west side of today’s Route 7 along the spur rail line by Florida Road.
The company produced Breinig’s Lithogen Silicate Paint and Wheeler’s Wood Filler, as well as many wood stains and dyes, dryers, and japans. In 1917 Bridgeport Wood Finishing was acquired by E. I. duPont Nemours Company. The Branchville buildings long ago were torn down.
Branchville also housed Grumman Tool Works, which made equipment for harvesting ice, such as iron tongs. (Some are currently on exhibit at the Ridgefield Historical Society.) Its building is now an auto repair operation.
In the 1960s, Benrus, the watch company, built a 200,000-square-foot complex on Route 7 south of Route 35 — across the road from where a Ridgefielder had proposed an ergonamics plant. Benrus was undoubtedly the biggest industrial operation ever in town, employing 800 people. But made-in-America watches soon disappeared, and with it Benrus. The buildings are now medical offices and warehouses.
Perhaps the longest-lived factory in town is Ullman Devices, just south of Ridgefield Ice Cream on Route 7. The company makes small tools that employ mirrors and magnets. The plant opened in 1959 and is still going strong 54 years later.