Willimantic is a census-designated place located in Windham, Connecticut, United States. Previously organized as a city and later as a borough, Willimantic is currently one of two tax districts within the Town of Windham. Willimantic is located within Windham County and the Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region. Known as "Thread City" for the American Thread Company's mills along the Willimantic River, it was a center of the textile industry in the 19th century. Originally incorporated as a city in 1893, it entered a period of decline after the Second World War, culminating in the mill's closure and the city's reabsorption into the town of Windham in the 1980s.
Willimantic was populated by a series of ethnic groups migrating to the city to find work at the mills, originally Western European and French Canadian immigrants, later Eastern Europeans and Puerto Ricans.
History
thumb|upright=1.2|Aerial view of Willimantic, 1909|alt=|left
Early history
Willimantic is named for the Willimantic River which passes through it. The word was first attested in English writing as Waramanticut in 1684, and later as Wallamanticuk, Wewemantic and Weammantuck before being standardized as Willimantic. The word is of Algonquian origin, either Mohegan-Pequot or Narragansett. It is commonly translated as "land of the swift running water", but the word more likely means "place near the evergreen swamp". The town of Willimantic, Maine, is named after Willimantic, Connecticut.
The surrounding town of Windham was founded in 1693 on land bequeathed by the Mohegan people. The first settler in what is now Willimantic was Samuel Ashley, who bought property there in 1717. Until it was industrialized, the area was called "Willimantic Falls". The first mill to be established was a picking and carding facility for wool, in 1806. Other mills followed, most notably a series of thread mills starting in 1822.
Willimantic became a city when its charter was revised in 1893. Up to the outbreak of World War II, it continued to be a center for the production of silk and cotton thread. The city was a major rail hub; in the early twentieth century, as many as a hundred trains ran through Willimantic daily. Ornate Victorian homes were built in the town's Prospect Hill section, and the town prospered, growing from a population of less than 5,000 in 1860 to more than 12,100 by 1910.
But hard times followed; American Thread moved to North Carolina in 1985 and without it, the town's economy foundered. The city consolidated back into the town in 1983.
As part of Windham (1983–present)
Heroin use, present since the 1960s, became a major public health problem in the early 2000s, which was followed by a 60 Minutes segment in 2003. The coverage upset local residents, and the state appointed a task force to study the issue. The Hotel Hooker, long known for drug use and prostitution, was renamed to the Seth Chauncey Hotel and put under new management in 2004, then renamed Windham House in 2005. Drug and prostitution arrests peaked in the late 2000s with increased enforcement, and began to fall by 2010. The poverty rate, at 25.9%, was more than double the state average in 2010.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the census-designated place (CDP) has a total area of , of which is land and (2.23%) is water. The Willimantic River and the Natchaug River converge to form the Shetucket River in southeastern Willimantic. The Hop River also flows into the Willimantic River at the western border.
Willimantic is, in part, bordered by rivers. Its western border follows the Willimantic River; its eastern border is formed by the Natchaug and Shetucket Rivers. The CDP borders the towns of Coventry, Mansfield, Columbia, and Lebanon. It also borders the CDPs of South Windham (which is in the same town as Willimantic) and Mansfield Center.