Watertown History Page by Charlie Crowell

This was the Country Cinema building under construction in 1917.

This was built by the Watertown Civic Union. The intention was for the building to be self-sufficient with stores on the street level and a hall upstairs, all to be rented out.

The basement offered more space and bowling lanes were installed early on.

The theater was operated by the Civic Union itself until 1932 when it too was rented out.

Watertown High School graduation ceremonies were held on the stage at the theater until the new high school on Heminway Park Road opened in 1929.

The Civic Union sold the building in 1950. It has been in private hands since.

During its 102 year lifetime, the theater operated under three different names.

Community Theater (1917-1932)
Cameo (1932-1972)
Country Cinema (1972-2019)

The building changed hands in 2019. The new owners announced intentions of renaming the theater to the Watertown Stage, but nothing ever became of the project and the theater sits unused today.

This photo is credited to Daniel Sullivan. Sullivan was an avid amateur photographer. Many of the early postcard views of Watertown were taken by Mr. Sullivan.

This was the inside of Sullivan’s Drug Store at the corner of Main Street and Heminway Park Road.

Behind the soda fountain counter were Doris O’Dell, Alice Sullivan, and Daniel Sullivan.

There’s no date on this photo but I’d guess the 1940s.

Dan opened his drug store in 1899 in an old house on the corner of Depot Street. Later he moved up Main Street to “the brick store” (later a bank) on the corner of Echo Lake Road.

Then in 1917 he built the location seen here.

Mr. Sullivan stepped away from the business in 1937 when he was appointed local postmaster. He died in 1955.

His daughter Alice carried on the drug store until 1967 when the property was sold to Bill Quigley for use as a sporting goods store.

This 1913 photo shows students on the front lawn of Baldwin School on North Street.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the names of these kids except in the third row, third from the left (in the darker dress) is Alice Sullivan (1902-1992).

She was the daughter of local pharmacy owner Daniel Sullivan. She would go on to become a pharmacist like her dad, a somewhat unusual feat for a woman back then.

Sullivan’s Drug Store opened in 1899.

Eventually, Dan turned the business over to Alice when he was appointed the Watertown Postmaster position.

Dan died in 1955. Alice continued the drug store until 1967 after which she was a pharmacist at March’s Pharmacy in Oakville.

Baldwin school opened in 1907 and closed in 2000. It was aquired by Taft School in 2014 and is still there today.

Here’s a little Christmas in July post. This is the old Sullivan House on Cutler Street beautifully deck out for the holidays in 2019.

The house was built in 1890 and about a decade later, was purchased by local druggist Daniel Sullivan.

I’ll be posting quite a bit about Dan, his daughter Alice (also a pharmacist) and their popular drug store on Main Street in the coming days. I recently acquired a large collection of old photos related to the business and family.

The pharmacy operated from 1899 until 1967.

The Sullivan House is currently owned by John Sullivan (no relations to Dan & Alice).

I took this photo 50 years ago today, on July 4, 1976. This was immediately after the Watertown Bicentennial Parade as the massive crowd dispersed.

This gang was headed up Cherry Avenue.

I remember looking over my shoulder and seeing this scene so I stopped, turned around and took the shot.

Everyone was headed home for cookouts or other such endeavors. Later, thousands converged on DeLand Field for fireworks.

The bicentennial was a whopping half century ago today, and there wasn’t a cell phone in sight. No one has bicentennial selfies.

In the distance was the firehouse and Traver’s Texaco Station and garage. My father worked at the garage as a teenager in the 1940s. It was a Cities Service gas station then.

He was working there on Sunday, December 7, 1941 when a customer pulled in and asked if he had heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

He replied, “Where’s Pearl Harbor?”

Before the war was over, Dad would go on to fly 25 combat missions over mainland Japan as a B29 pilot. 🇺🇸

VIP's in the Bicentennial Parade, July 4, 1976, passing the reviewing stand in front of the firehouse on Main Street. L to R Bernie Beauchamp, Col. James Bruno, representing Gov, Ella Grasso, Norman Stephen, Bicentennial Chairman and Bob Pettinichi, Parade Chairman.

The stone retaining wall in the background was built in 1907 when the trolley line was built.

This was an event held at the Old Burial Grounds on Main Street during the bicentennial in 1976 honoring the Revolutionary War soldiers buried there.

Here's a photo I took 50 years ago today, July 4, 1976, during the bicentennial parade. The building on the right was recently demolished, now the site of a municipal parking lot. Other than that, not much has changed in the scene in the last half century.

The enormous crowd of spectators will likely never be matched again.

50 YEARS AGO TODAY

This house stood where Pizza Hut was, and Taco Bell is located today at 1074 Main Street in Watertown.

On July 4th, 1976, the home played host to this most memorable party. The location was ideal for viewing the historic Bicentennial Parade.

Three years later, the house, and much of the hillside it sat on, would be gone and the new Pizza Hut would be in operation.

(Photo courtesy of Alvina Mary Quatrano)

This photo has become somewhat famous. After being posted here back in 2019, it was picked up by countless 70s related social media pages as a quintessential 70s moment. I saw one site where it had hundreds of thousands views.

This was the Mattatuck Drum Band thundering it’s way up Main Street in Watertown during the town’s bicentennial parade, July 4, 1976.

The band was approaching the reviewing stand at the Watertown Firehouse.

Always a highlight of any parade, the band was organized in 1767.

The name Mattatuck (Waterbury’s name when was first settled) was derived from the original Native American inhabitants who called the area "Matetacoke" meaning "the interval lands." The name was Anglicised to "Mattatuck" in 1673.

(Crowell Photo)