Editor's Note: This is the last of a three-part series on historic buildings in Sprague.

Judy Synnett greeted me at the town library (formerly the old grist mill) in Baltic to show me around town. Synnett is a town historian. Her father Dennis Delaney was also a town historian. He wrote a book about the town called “History of the Town of Sprague Connecticut.”

I had a lot of questions to ask Synnett as we drove around Baltic in her car along the icy road in December. Being someone who grew up in Texas and knowing nothing about the area when I arrived three years prior, the history of the little village struck my interest.

Baltic is a little mill village of Sprague. It runs beside the Shetucket River. Baltic was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

On the register, aside from a few structures such as sheds and garages, essentially the entire village is included.

Most of the buildings in Baltic were built between 1857 and 1861, when the Sprague family from Cranston, Rhode Island, established textile production in Sprague and created the village. The first town mill, A & W Sprague Manufacturing Mill, was built in 1857. It was badly damaged by a fire in 1887.

In 1900, Frederick Sayles bought the old Sprague mill and associated buildings. He rebuilt the mill and it became The Baltic Mill.

Baltic was established as a mill village, and that’s what allowed it to grow. Many of the town structures also have historical relevance.

The mill owned all the houses in town and would rent them out to families, but for someone who was single and didn’t need a house, they would rent a room in the boarding house, whether they were male or female.

There was a men’s athletic club behind the boarding house that remained until it went down in the hurricane of 1938.

According to the National Register of Historic Places, the largest number of buildings in Baltic are two-family workers’ dwellings, all completed by the first year of the Civil War.

When the Baltic historic district was listed as a historic place in 1987, there were 117 of these buildings in town. All are gable-roof buildings standing one and a half stories tall. They have two front doors.

Front dormers were added to most of them from 1900 to 1901.

The town post office now sits where the old company barn used to be. The mill owned the barn, as well. The company store would use it to put their horses in. They would also keep their wagons in the barn.

The old company barn was torn down in the early 1960s.

In the 1870s a gristmill was built in the town. What used to be the old gristmill has since been used as a jail and community center. It is now being used as the town’s library, and the second floor in the building can be rented out for parties and large gatherings.

One day while Synnett was cleaning between the floorboards on the third floor of the old gristmill, she found some oat seeds. A long time ago, some oats fell in between some floorboards and they sat there untouched as time and people changed around them.

“They would have been about 150 years old,” said Synnett.

Employment at the Sprague mill doubled during the 1860s because of the first mass immigration from Quebec. Around half the residents of the village were French-Canadians.

Perhaps the most well-known French Canadian businessman, according to information on the National Register, was Raymond Jodoin. Raymond’s family arrived in Baltic when he was only 2 years old, and he began working in the mill at the age of 9.

He made $3 a week. He saved the money, and when he reached legal age he opened up a livery stable.

In the town center he developed commercial property, opened a hotel, a saloon, and rented spaces to other businesses. Raymond eventually became the largest individual land owner in Baltic, and built the Roderick Block, which was the most prominent commercial building in town during his time.

As we drove around the little village, Synnett spoke of how it’s changed over time.

“In the old days, on River Street the elm trees made it look like you were driving through a tunnel,” said Synnett. “High Street was the same way, but now for the most part, all of the big trees are gone.”

River Street, Main Street, and High Street used to be called Big Flats.

“Main Street and High Street used to be lined with all picket fences on both sides and everybody had a porch swing,” said Synnett.

Park Drive was called Little Flats. As far as Synnett knows, there’s no significance to the name Big Flats or Little Flats. That’s just what people called them.

It should come as no surprise that the little village is also known for having strange and irregular street names.

A trolley used to run up Elm Street and High Street. The switch to Williamantic was on West Main Street. Back when the old trolley ran down the street, it was called Railroad Avenue.

Synnett recalled the time when the dam went out in 1955 and Little Flats flooded. Some guys in the area walked in to see what the damage was like, and they saw a floating house that had been taken by the water. It was floating down the river and there was a chicken sitting on top of it.

Right before the house was sucked under the bridge, the chicken jumped off and glided to land.

Baltic has changed over the years. Allen’s Hardware is no longer there. Where Cumberland Farms is now, there used to be a garage. Before that it was an auto shop.

What used to be the company store is now Baltic Convenience, and a food pantry now sits where the Baltic Hotel used to be.

People in the town used to get out and do things together, but now that has changed too.

“Whether there was a big fire, whether there was some kind of parade or something going on,” said Synnett, “there were always thousands of people that would come and watch it.”

Synnett was referring to the way the world was before smart phones, but the pandemic has also affected the town, as well.