Picture South Windsor - Then And Now

SOUTH WINDSOR, CT —It's time to dive back into a wonderful picture book called Images of America: South Windsor, compiled in 2017 by Claire Lobdell for the Wood Memorial Library & Museum. The book, containing 128 pages of fascinating photos from the town's history, is available for purchase at the library's museum store here.

On page 96, we find a 1964 aerial view of the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Fuel Cell Operation at 196 Governors Highway. The plant played an instrumental role in manned space flight for more than four decades, with employees designing fuel cells for NASA which powered the Apollo and space shuttle missions.

In 1985, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. under the name International Fuel Cells, and became UTC Power in 2001. The company was sold to ClearEdge Power in Feb. 2013, but the South Windsor base closed abruptly in April 2014 after ClearEdge filed for bankruptcy protection.

Doosan Fuel Cell America, Inc. bought ClearEdge out of bankruptcy in July 2014. The manufacturer's main product is a 400 kilowatt fuel cell.

Here is a contemporary view of the area, courtesy of Google Maps. We have included a few of the Google tags, including Nomad's Outdoor Adventure and Revolutions Bowling. On the left edge of the photo, about halfway down, is Nomad's Adventure Quest, while Main Street runs left to right across the upper part of the picture.

Do you have a photo of an old South Windsor business which no longer exists, to which you own the rights and which we could feature in this column? Email tim.jensen@patch.com.

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