Ansonia, a city famous for brass and metal production, was initially a borough to one of New Haven County's biggest towns.

The city was merely one of two boroughs within the town of Derby in 1883. Most of the Ansonia borough was where the city's downtown is today, said Robert Novak, director of the Derby Historical Society. West Ansonia, the territory west of the Naugatuck River, was part of the town of Derby, as was the Hilltop section, where some of the city's schools are today. The borough was a growing area thanks to the presence of factories, Novak said. William Wallace's Wallace & Sons brass manufacturing company and the Farrel Corp.'s foundry were among the borough's major employers. Nearly 3,900 people called Ansonia home, according to the 1880 U.S. Census. Novak said the borough was becoming more prosperous thanks to more jobs.

"Brass and copper was huge then," Novak said. "The population was growing dramatically. Ansonia had the jobs because of the power from the Naugatuck River and the Ansonia Canal."

While a Board of Selectmen ran the town, Ansonia's main government officer was a warden named John B. Gardner. "The buck stopped with him in Ansonia borough," Novak said. The growth was also sparked with a railroad station being in the heart of the borough, which led to a thriving merchant community, he said. "Neighborhoods were being built up all over the place," Novak said. Most of the affluent Ansonians resided in big houses on State Street as well as North

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Cliff and South Cliff streets, Novak said.

Borough residents were dissatisfied with how Ansonia was being treated compared to the town's other city, Birmingham, and eventually formed their own town in 1889. Ansonia became a city in 1891.