In ‘Plainville, Connecticut: A History,' a small town serves as a microcosm for the national odyssey.
Plainville, Connecticut, with a population of 17,525 (as per the 2020 Census), rarely finds itself at the center of public attention. Outside of a few annual events, notably the colorful Hot Air Balloon Festival in August and the occasional traffic accident along its stretches of Interstate 84 and Route 72, it is mostly absent from the headlines.
And yet this placid, small town could be viewed as a mirror of the American experience. Todd Jones’s captivating new book traces the history of Plainville, detailing with remarkable research how this little section of central Connecticut served as a microcosm of the nation’s evolution.
Changing With the Times
When the first Europeans arrived in the mid-1600s, the land belonged to the Tunxis tribe. The Europeans marveled at the tribe’s forest management. Through controlled burns and the trails they created, the Tunxis enabled unencumbered access to other parts of the region. Colonists claimed the Tunxis created a park-like environment out of the wilderness. But the newcomers were not interested in coexistence with the tribe. Jones notes the Tunxis’s world slowly disappeared with relocation to other states and assimilation through intermarriage with other races.
