Timexpo Museum Site, Connecticut

The Timexpo Museum in Waterbury operated from 2001-2015, and celebrated the region’s important role in brass-making and machining, which led to the region becoming the center for American clock-making. The Waterbury Clock Company formed in 1854, and became one of the largest of the many companies producing timepieces here, at a time when the Naugatuck Valley was known as the Switzerland of America, for all the clock making going on there. After WWII, the Waterbury Clock Company was renamed the United States Time Corporation, and was by then involved in military technology, as well as producing Mickey Mouse watches. It introduced the Timex brand wristwatch, which became so popular the company changed its name to the Timex Corporation in 1969. Timex, which still has corporate offices in Middlebury, Connecticut, is now owned by an international holding company, and is a brand name for watches that are made all over the world, but not around here anymore. Regional redevelopment organizations, with the support coming from the Timex Group, developed this museum in a remaining portion of a historic brass mill building, now isolated on the edge of shopping plaza parking lot near an interstate overpass, and, now, closed.