Torrington Homes for Sale

Torrington is the most populated municipality and only city in Litchfield County, Connecticut and the Northwest Hills region. It is also the core city of Greater Torrington, one of the largest micropolitan areas in the United States. The city population was 35,515 according to the 2020 census.

Torrington was first settled in 1735 by Ebenezer Lyman, Jr., of Durham, Connecticut. The downtown section of Torrington was known as Wolcottville, after the Wolcott family of Connecticut, which produced several governors between 1813 and 1881. Its early settlers resided on the hills west of the Naugatuck River where the first school, church, store, and tavern were constructed. Later, the eastern hill known as Torringford was settled, as it provided the best farmland. Torrington was given permission to organize a government and incorporate as a town in October 1740. The town is named after Torrington in Devon, England.

The fast moving waters of the Naugatuck River were used to power early nineteenth-century industries. Industrial growth skyrocketed when Frederick Wolcott constructed a woolen mill in 1813. The mill attracted a large workforce and created demands for goods, services, and housing.

From a postcard sent in 1906
Israel Coe and Erastus Hodges began the construction of two brass mills on the Naugatuck River in 1834. This event sparked the beginning of the brass industry in Torrington, which later would spread throughout the entire Naugatuck Valley. In 1849, the Naugatuck Valley railroad was completed, connecting Torrington with other population centers, ending its isolation, and stimulating further industrial growth. Soon, Torrington was producing a variety of metal products, including needles, brass, hardware, bicycles, and tacks. Torrington’s growing industrial plants attracted English, Irish, and German immigrants throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Between 1880 and 1920, Torrington’s population soared from 3,000 to 22,000 as immigration from southern and eastern Europe increased; most immigrants during this period were Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Italians. Torrington was chartered as a city in 1923.