Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Winsted, CT

Winsted is a census-designated place and an incorporated city in Litchfield County, Connecticut, within the town of Winchester, and its name comes from its role as the business center for the towns of Winchester and Barkhamsted.

Winsted had a population of 7,192 at the 2020 census, down from 7,712 at the 2010 census, and it makes up the majority of the town of Winchester's population of 10,224.

Settled in 1750, Winsted was formed at the junction of the Mad River and Still River and was one of the first mill towns in Connecticut, with scythes first manufactured at the Winsted Manufacturing Company in 1792.

Winsted was incorporated as a borough in 1858 and as a city in 1917, and although the state still recognizes it as an incorporated city, the Census Bureau stopped recognizing it as an incorporated place sometime between 1970 and 1980 because it does not maintain a separate, active existence from the town of Winchester.

Along with New Haven, Winsted was a center for the production of mechanical clocks in the 1900s, and the Gilbert Clock Company, founded along the Still River in 1871 by William L. Gilbert, became one of the largest clock companies in the world around the start of the 20th century.

In 1955, Hurricanes Connie and Diane passed over Connecticut within one week and flooded the Mad River and Still River through downtown Winsted, with water up to 10 feet deep in the center of town, so the buildings on one side of Main Street were removed and Main Street was widened to four lanes, and the flooding was the final blow to the already struggling Gilbert Clock Company.

The Gilbert School, originally endowed with more than $600,000 by William L. Gilbert, is a private secondary school that serves as the public high school for the town of Winchester for grades 7 through 12.

Northwestern Connecticut Community College was founded in 1965 by Winsted residents and occupies the original Gilbert School building, and it was one of the first four community colleges in Connecticut.

Ralph Nader opened the American Museum of Tort Law in 2015 inside the former Winsted Savings Bank building at 654 Main Street, and the arts and education center the American Mural Project holds the record for the largest indoor, collaborative mural in the world.

Whiting Mills, once Winsted Hosiery, the largest hosiery manufacturer in the state in the 1800s, is now home to 56 artisans, small businesses, and retail shops and was named the 2016 Best Artists' Community in Connecticut by Yankee Magazine.