Downtown
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Returning to the center of Town, cross the Depot Street Bridge (The Steel Bridge) and directly in front of you is Beacon Mill Village. Now residential units, Beacon Falls grew up around the handsome brick factory complex, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1850 the complex had been the American Hard Rubber Company, The Home Woolen Company, the Standard Woolen Company, Beacon Power and Mill and the Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company. It is even said to be haunted by the spirit of an electrician who was electrocuted while at work there.
During the Civil War, The Home Woolen Company supplied shawls to Union soldiers. By 1870 the Home Woolen Company was producing 13,000 shawls per month. But the soldiers came home with long woolen coats that were made elsewhere. So shawls were no longer needed and the company went out of business in 1880. The Town was pretty quiet for a short time after they left.
But Beacon Falls experienced a boom when the Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company moved into the complex. In 1898 George Lewis founded the company. His son Tracy Lewis later became president and ran the company until 1922. The company was very successful and maintained a band which played every noon and gave concerts in the park on summer evenings. The Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company produced the nationally known Top Notch brand, with offices in Boston, San Francisco and New York. In 1915, the company hired the Olmstead Brothers from Massachusetts, sons of the man who designed Central Park in New York, to create a plan to develop the Town. Most of the Town was on the hill behind the complex.
Depot Street Bridge
53 Beacon Mill Village
Take a left down North Main Street where you will pass on your right 54 four identical houses built at the time of the Civil War.
At the stop sign at the end of the street, turn right on Church Street which becomes Wolfe Avenue. Go .3 mile to the United Church of Christ which will be on your right.
