History
Most of the alignment of Route 8 was part of an improved toll road known as the Waterbury River Turnpike, which ran from Naugatuck, via Torrington, Winchester Center and Colebrook Center, to the Massachusetts state line. The turnpike was chartered in 1801 and collected tolls until 1862. Two other sections of Route 8 were also old turnpikes: the portion north of Torrington was known as the Still River Turnpike chartered in 1815; the portion between Seymour and Naugatuck was known as the Humphreysville and Salem Turnpike chartered in 1825.
In 1922, the six New England states began a region-wide highway numbering system. The trunk highway from Stratford through Waterbury to the Massachusetts state line became part of the multi-state New England Route 8. Route 8 remained unchanged in the 1932 state highway renumbering. The main road connecting Bridgeport and Shelton (following Noble Avenue, Huntington Turnpike, Shelton Road, Bridgeport Avenue, and Center Street), which was designated as State Highway 316 in 1922, was renumbered as Route 65 in the 1932 renumbering.
In 1951, the Ansonia-Derby-Shelton Expressway portion between Constitution Boulevard in Shelton and Pershing Drive in Derby (including the Commodore Isaac Hull Memorial Bridge) opened to traffic. As part of the freeway upgrading of Route 8, the southern terminus was shifted west from Stratford to Bridgeport, taking over old Route 65. The original southern end of Route 8 was assigned to an extended Route 110. By 1957, the entire length of the Ansonia-Derby-Shelton Expressway portion is open with the extension from Pershing Drive to Route 334 at the Ansonia/Seymour town line complete.
In the 1960s and 1970s additional sections of the Route 8 freeway opened in stages: in 1960, the segment from Route 63 to South Main Street in Waterbury opened; in 1962, the section from Route 334 to Route 67, including the elevated highway portion through central Seymour, opened; in 1966, the Mixmaster interchange with I-84 is completed and the freeway was also extended to Route 262 in Watertown. An additional section from Route 118 in Litchfield to Kennedy Road in Torrington also opened. By 1970, the portion from Route 262 in Watertown to Route 118 in Litchfield opened. By 1972, the segment from I-95 to Route 108 in Trumbull, including the overlap with Route 25, was completed. The freeway was also extended from Kennedy Road in Torrington to its present terminus at Route 44 in Winsted. By 1975, the freeway was completed between Huntington Turnpike at the Trumbull/Shelton town line to Constitution Boulevard in Shelton.
The early 1980s saw the completion of the Route 8 freeway with the 4-lane surface route from Route 67 in Seymour to Route 63 in Naugatuck (originally built in the 1940s) upgraded to a freeway, including the portion that bypasses Beacon Falls. The last segment of freeway between Route 108 in Trumbull and Huntington Turnpike, including a new interchange with the Merritt Parkway was completed in 1982. This constituted the completion of the freeway from Bridgeport to Winchester, 35 years after construction began.
Read more about this topic: Connecticut Route 8
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“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
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—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)