Sleepy Hawleyville Was A Lot Livelier 100 Years Ago––

The End Of Land’s End Road

By Dottie Evans

A mere 220 feet of crumbling asphalt overcome by weeds and a quaint cement bridge with the date 1928 carved on it are both in the process of disappearing.

Not disappearing in any magical, misty Brigadoonlike way, but disappearing officially.

Ceasing to exist, at least as far as the Newtown Highway Department is concerned.

Lands End Road is a short, dead-end spur off Old Hawleyville Road on the Brookfield side of I-84.

As those who live nearby already know, this little road has been going nowhere for a good long time –– for more than 40 years since four-lane I-84 came through and blocked its path.

In what might have been their most redundant executive decision ever, Newtown’s three selectmen voted this spring to “discontinue” Lands End Road, so the town would no longer need to maintain it.

Before the vote, Town Engineer Ron Bulmer described the area as it looks today.

“There is an old bridge over Pond Brook that leads to this little cul-de-sac. The bridge is structurally deficient and it might cost us $200,000 to replace it,” Mr Bulmer said.

“A swamp extends on both sides, and the only area that is really dry is at the end of the road, where they poured in fill for the highway.”

As part of legal documentation needed to officially close Lands End Road, maps are being drawn to show the area that will be deeded to a property owner who lives out of state. Meanwhile, the town has erected a corrugated metal railing to prohibit vehicular traffic.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal was glad to get Lands End Road off the books.

“It had become a satellite dumping ground for old couches and whatnot. Beavers have built dams upstream and downstream. With the discontinuance, it will stay as it is and the town won’t be responsible for it. That’s one less bridge to maintain,” he noted at the selectmen’s April 7 meeting.

Now the beavers and the great blue herons will have it all to themselves.

Run Over By I-84

In 1944, when the interstate highway system was first conceived, Connecticut had already built a patchwork of expressways here and there around the state.

Old Route 1, the Post Road, was still the quickest way to travel up and down the east coast, but traveling east or west in the middle of Connecticut meant following the tortuous two-lane path of Route 6 through many towns and countless stoplights.

By 1945, I-84 had been penciled in as an east-west alternative, but funding was not available.

Finally, during the Eisenhower presidency in 1956, building the interstate highway system had gained top priority status, partially because the federal government feared nuclear war and saw a need to move great numbers of people out of the big cities on short notice in case of a nuclear attack.

In 1958, Connecticut Governor Abraham Ribicoff gave the go-ahead for I-84, and work began in the Danbury area during October of that year.

On December 16, 1961, 15 miles of the four-lane, divided highway I-84 were opened from the New York/Connecticut state line to Sandy Hook. This would most likely have been the time that Land’s End Road was closed off.

Town Historian Dan Cruson, who has researched the growth of outlying districts of Newtown, including the historic Lands End District, has found several old postcards showing its rural scenic roads before the interstate.

The name Lands End was first used in public documents dating back to 1769, and the Lands End District appeared on a town map in 1854.

Concerning the interstate, which cut across the northwestern part of Newtown, further isolating that area from the rest of the town, Mr Cruson recalled that for a long time, “You had to get off I-84 and go through Sandy Hook on two-lane Route 6.”

The next section of I-84 between Sandy Hook and the Rochambeau Bridge was not completed until 1967.

When Hawleyville Was A Happening Place

When the Board of Selectmen voted on the discontinuance, Mr Cruson was asked if he knew where Lands End Road went originally. What was the area like 100 years ago?

“It would be very difficult to reconstruct the actual path of Lands End Road before I-84, because there has been so much reconfiguration in the area,” Mr Cruson said.

Before the interstate, Lands End Road was connected to what is now Covered Bridge Road on the south side of 84, and eventually it led to Mt Pleasant Road.

Currituck Road had been the original highway between Newtown and New Milford, Mr Cruson said, and it was laid out along with most of the other local roads in 1802 or 1803.

“Obtuse Road was added later, at an angle, and the connector from Hawleyville to Route 6 was put in by local Hawleyville entrepreneur William Upham in the early 1900s.

“When William Upham opened his peanut butter factory [1915] and then his tea shop [1919], he built that section of straight road that we know today as Route 25 so there would be a direct road south from the train station and his various business enterprises.

“In truth, Upham was really was the one who put Hawleyville on the map,” Mr Cruson added.

In June 1928, Mr Upham dredged out a small lake along Pond Brook and built a few rustic bridges. He opened a Japanese tea garden and amusement park, and he built the state’s first miniature golf center around this little lake.

The lake and lawns can still be seen from Route 25 south of Hawleyville, and there is a post office and small deli-convenience center along the road. A few of the railroad tracks remain, and one or two local trains come through each day, offloading lumber to local suppliers who arrive with their flatbed trucks.

Quieter Today Than Yesterday

Stories of old-time Hawleyville must seem like ancient history to Kristy and Mark Schoenberg, a young couple with small children who moved into 4 Lands End Road last August.

The Schoenbergs say their house was built in 1979, long after the highway was completed, and from their perspective, the road closing at the end of their street is a moot point.

“It was already blocked off when we came. We’ve walked down there and it’s all overgrown with weeds that are chest high. People do go fishing in there, and we’ve seen a few cars parked. We did find an old shed near the bridge that looked like it had been part of a house that was torn down,” said Mrs Schoenberg.

“We’ll be glad if it stays quiet,” she added.

Indeed, Hawleyville today feels like a backwater from a bygone time, and most people who pass through it are on their way to somewhere else.

Where there had once been 153 trains a day passing through Hawleyville Center in 1910, passenger and commuter train service ceased entirely in 1936 due to irregularity in schedules.

Perhaps as a result of the loss of rail traffic, the once-thriving community went into an economic decline during the 1930s. Undoubtedly the Great Depression and subsequent collapse of the tourist industry also played a part.

When Mr Upham’s various enterprises closed down, Hawleyville got quieter and sleepier. Some would say it has not woken up yet, despite the coming of I-84 and the 1970s population explosion that followed the interstate.

Like Rip Van Winkle, Hawleyville seems stuck somewhere in the past. Whenever the area does come back to life, one wonders what its next incarnation will be.