By GLADYS ALCEDO
Day Staff Writer
Published on 6/16/2003

Groton— Compared to other Connecticut towns and cities, Groton city is relatively young.

The incorporation of the “city” as an independent borough within Groton town, by a special act by the state legislature in 1903, helped create the unique and complex, multiple government structure that now shapes the Groton town landscape.

The impetus came from local leaders who wanted to extend authority of the city fire district to offer water and electricity to the residents in the area now known as Groton city.

The leaders decided that providing fire protection wasn't sufficient and they wanted to reorganize as a borough to provide streets, utilities and police protection. Soon after its incorporation, the “borough purchased the works of the Groton Water Company and the proposed Electric Light Company for $125,000 cash, assuming a mortgage of $75,000,” according to town historian Carol Kimball.

That Groton utility company has since grown into a $55 million business, offering water and electricity to most of Groton town. The utility operates the Bozrah Light & Power and the Manitock bottled spring water business in Waterford. And the city utility may soon enter into the cable television business to diversify its services at a time of electric deregulation.

The city will officially kick off its Centennial Celebration at the end of this week, extending through October. The incorporation a century ago took place around June 21-22, said James L. Streeter, chairman of the centennial Celebration Committee.

“If you think back 100 years and look at what we've been through, there were a lot of forward-thinking people. I just hope we could keep up with that,” Groton city Mayor Dennis L. Popp said. “If what has happened in the past predicts the future, we can only get better.”

The process of incorporation began in 1901, said Wally Trolan, also a member of the Centennial Committee. And the history of the community on the eastern shore of the Thames River extends centuries earlier than its official birthday.

Groton city, as it has been known since 1964, is where Groton town first evolved. The first settler to live on the Groton shore, Cary Latham, moved here in 1654, when the east bank of the Thames was still considered part of New London, according to a booklet the city will distribute during the centennial.

Latham, who operated the ferry between New London and Groton, built his home next to the ferry landing on the east shore, across from the street from what is now the Avery-Copp Museum on Thames Street, Trolan said. That area is now known as Groton Bank, the city's oldest section.

Because the ferry landing was a crossroads for travelers, the area around it soon became a place where Groton's first settlers set up their businesses and homes.

“The town of Groton will be celebrating its 300-year anniversary (in 2005). This is the 300-year-old part,” Popp said.

Groton Bank became Groton's business center, while the rest of the town remained farmland, said Trolan, who wrote most of the historic booklet. “It was more or less the center of the town up to the late 1700s,” he said.

When Groton town was established in 1705 as an entity independent from New London, the 3.06-square-mile Groton city operated as one of its many fire districts. At the turn of the century, Groton city was considered more cosmopolitan than the rest of the Groton town, which was rural, said Kimball.

Trolan speculated that the city was formed as a way for the local investors of the water company to protect their investment. That water company, incorporated first in 1891, is now known as Groton Utilities.

“There were nine investors who laid out $100,000 of their own money to start the water company,” Trolan said. “The investors became the main politicians to create the borough. Their main interest was to protect their investment in the water company.”

Kimball said the investors of the water company were smart businessmen who saw the market that was fast growing in the community.

“The reasons we were formed were to provide municipal services,” Popp said. “We've got a long history of providing municipal services, and we just can't let that stop and rest on our laurels. We have to protect what we have and do better.”

g.alcedo@theday.com