Southbury is a town in western New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. Southbury is north of Oxford and Newtown, and east of Brookfield. Its population was 19,879 at the 2020 census. The town is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region.
Southbury comprises sprawling rural country areas, suburban neighborhoods, and historic districts. It is a short distance from major business and commercial centers, and is within of New York City and of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut.
Southbury is the only community in the country with the name "Southbury", which is why the town seal reads Unica Unaque, meaning "The One and Only."
History
The town of Southbury was one of several towns formed out of parcels of land purchased from the Pootatuck Native Americans. Southbury was originally part of Woodbury, which was settled in 1673. A meetinghouse for the Southbury Ecclesiastical Society was built in 1733, and in 1787 the town of Southbury was incorporated. Although incorporated as part of Litchfield County, Southbury has been in New Haven County for most of its existence.
In the 1800s, water power became essential to the growth of Southbury's industries, which included mills, tanneries, and distilleries. The power for these industries came primarily from the Pomperaug River and the Housatonic River. As the industrial revolution progressed, many of these businesses left for Waterbury.
In the 1920s, Russian expatriates Count Ilya Tolstoy (son of the author Leo Tolstoy) and George Grebenstchikoff founded an artists' colony at one end of Main Street, known as Churaevka (or "Russian Village"). At its peak, Churaevka had a printing press used by Russian and Ukrainian scholars and novelists. Visitors to the colony included the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Most of its immigrant population is now gone; however, St. Sergius Chapel, designed by Nicholas Roerich and built in 1932–1933, remains. Churaevka is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In November 1937, residents of the farming outpost got word that a man by the name of Wolfgang Jung had purchased in the town. Residents looking into his plans discovered that he was a member of the German American Bund, an organization of ethnic Germans living in the United States who supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Its leader, Fritz Kuhn, was considered the leading anti-Semite in the country. Word soon got out that they were, in fact, planning to build their largest training facility in the country. Residents objected by calling a town meeting and set up a zoning department with one simple rule, no military activity excluding the United States Army. The law was adopted December 14 and the Bund stopped work and eventually sold the land.
Southbury was a rural farming town for most of its history. However, with the development of the Interstate Highway System, that changed. With the opening of Interstate 84 through Southbury by 1963, the town gained easy access to New York and Hartford, also improving its access to Danbury and Waterbury. Heritage Village opened in 1967, on a site. In 1987, IBM built an extensive office and research building in Southbury, employing over 2,500 workers. Southbury transitioned from a primarily rural community into the varied town it is today, with the commercial downtown and residential neighborhoods sharing the town with farming communities and extended rural acreage. Today, Southbury has approximately 17% open space, with a goal of 20%.
In the early 1990s, Southbury was the subject of a lawsuit by the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation. The 100-member tribe sought to take the land of roughly 1,200 property holders in the town. The lawsuit was thrown out in 1993 based on the fact that the man who brought the suit was not a chieftain, contrary to his claims, and had no standing to bring the suit.
Geography
According to the US Census Bureau, Southbury has a total area of , of which is land and , or 2.69%, is water.
Towns that border Southbury are Middlebury to the northeast, Oxford to the east and southeast, Newtown to the southwest, Bridgewater to the west, and Roxbury and Woodbury to the north.
South Britain and Southford are included in the incorporated township of Southbury.