Artist's View of Old Cove Mill Harbor, May 1931 (Whitman Bailey)
As we walk on Cove Island these days, we doubt any of us can imagine what it looked like in the past. The Old Cove Mills were destroyed in a tremendous fire on February 19, 1919, and except for one small building, nothing is left today. However, it looked quite different still in 1931 as this sketch by Whitman Bailey shows, printed in The Advocate on May 16, 1931.
Mr. Bailey drew a number of sketches of the Cove section of Stamford. A list can be found here (Inventoried Collection IC117) and may be viewed on our library computer.
We add the usual warning: "At times, the accompanying vignettes are mostly folklore passed on to Mr. Bailey by residents of the areas where he was sketching. In those instances he had no way of determining the truth of the story. Nor have we. It is presented as a sidelight to the sketch. Therefore, researchers are cautioned to regard these tales as local color, interesting, thought provoking, but sometimes not entirely factual."
More information about the Cove Mills can be found in Record Group 7 on our website, The Stamford Manufacturing Co. and The Stamford Extract Manufacturing Co.
Mill Photos
Famous Cove Mills Perish in Stamford's Biggest Fire (SHS Newsletter)
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