Hartford Connecticut History & Facts

Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the 2010 United States census have indicated that Hartford is the fourth-largest city in Connecticut with a 2020 population of 121,054, behind the coastal cities of Bridgeport, New Haven, and Stamford.

Hartford was founded in 1635 and is among the oldest cities in the United States. It is home to the country's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest publicly funded park (Bushnell Park), the oldest continuously published newspaper (the Hartford Courant), and the second-oldest secondary school (Hartford Public High School). It is also home to the Mark Twain House, where the author wrote his most famous works and raised his family, among other historically significant sites. Mark Twain wrote in 1868, "Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief."

Hartford was the richest city in the United States for several decades following the American Civil War. Today, it is one of the poorest cities in the U.S., with 3 out of every 10 families living below the poverty threshold. In sharp contrast, the Greater Hartford metropolitan statistical area was ranked 32nd of 318 metropolitan areas in total economic production and 8th out of 280 metropolitan statistical areas in per capita income in 2015.

Nicknamed the "Insurance Capital of the World", Hartford holds high sufficiency as a global city, as home to the headquarters of many insurance companies, the region's major industry. Other prominent industries include the services, education and healthcare industries. Hartford coordinates certain Hartford-Springfield regional development matters through the Knowledge Corridor Economic Partnership.

Various tribes lived in or around Hartford, all Algonquian peoples. These included the Podunks, mostly east of the Connecticut River; the Poquonocks north and west of Hartford; the Massacoes in the Simsbury area; the Tunxis tribe in West Hartford and Farmington; the Wangunks to the south; and the Saukiog in Hartford itself.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.0 square miles (47 km2), of which 17.3 square miles (45 km2) is land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2) (3.67%) is water.

The city of Hartford is bordered by the towns of West Hartford, Newington, Wethersfield, East Hartford, Bloomfield, South Windsor, Glastonbury, and Windsor. The Connecticut River forms the boundary between Hartford and East Hartford, and is located on the east side of the city.

The Park River originally divided Hartford into northern and southern sections and was a major part of Bushnell Park, but the river was nearly completely enclosed and buried by flood control projects in the 1940s. The former course of the river can still be seen in some of the roadways that were built in the river's place, such as Jewell Street and the Conlin-Whitehead Highway.

Famous Peoples From Hartford Connecticut

Robert Clayton Ames

(March 6, 1934 – April 18, 1983) was an American spy, the Central Intelligence Agency's Near East Director. He was killed in the 1983 United States embassy bombing in Beirut.

Raised in Philadelphia he was a 1956 graduate of La Salle University. While at La Salle, he was a member of the La Salle basketball team which won the NCAA championship in 1954 and was runner-up in 1955.

In 1956, he joined the US Army from which he switched to the CIA, specializing in the Middle East. He rose to become the CIA's chief analyst for the area. Working for the CIA's Middle East Directorate of Operations, Ames is reputed to have made the first high-level penetration of the PLO. It is claimed one of two senior contacts he made was the high-ranking PLO commander Hassan Salameh.

Ames was killed on April 18, 1983 when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the United States embassy in Beirut. A total of 63 people were killed in the explosion including Ames, the CIA Lebanon station chief and his deputy, as well as six other CIA officers and eight other Americans. CIA Director William Casey described the loss of Ames as "the closest thing to an irreplaceable man".

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