The Bullard Co. was founded as the Bridgeport Machine Tool Works by E.P. Bullard in 1880 and moved into Fairfield in 1920. The factory closed in the early 1980s and is now a retail site as well as the Fairfield Metro railroad station.Courtesy: Fairfield Museum and History Center.

Large manufacturers in Fairfield have long since shut down, but remnants of those operations remain.

The Bullard Machine Tool Co. -- its water tower still stands -- is now the site of BJs Wholesale Club and the movie theater complex off lower Black Rock Turnpike. Across from that site, the former site of a Bullard's foundry is now the Fairfield Metro railroad station.

The Handy & Harman precious metal foundry was replaced a few years ago by Kings Crossing shopping center, while the former site of a McKesson & Robbins pharmaceuticals plant next door is where a Home Depot store now stands. The McKesson plant had been demolished in 1989.

The DuPont/Fairprene factory complex, spanning from lower Mill Plain Road to North Pine Creek Road, has been redeveloped into the Fairfield Sportsplex housing a range of recreational businesses and restaurants. Founded in 1879, the company made carriage accessories and at one time was Fairfield's largest employer. The E.I. Dupont DeNemours Co. bought the rubber company's Mill Plain Road property in 1916 and expanded operations, manufacturing glazed rubber for use in cars. Eventually, Fairprene Industrial Products Co. took over the plant at that location, finally closing the factory in 2003.

After standing vacant for several years, the Fairprene property became viable again when the town's Recreation Department turned a former Fairprene building into its offices and rec center. The vast remainder of the property has, over the intervening years, been gradually redeveloped in to the multi-faceted Fairfield Sportsplex.

The Post Road property where the large Exide Battery plant once stood has been cleared, but remains undeveloped awaiting another attempt to fully clean the lead dumped by that factory in the nearby Mill River over the years.

The Fairfield Underwear Co. once employed more than 100 workers in its Sanford Street plant, and five to six tons of dog food were shipped out of Fairfield daily in the early 19th century by the Kennel Food Supply Co.

On Grasmere and Linwood avenues, Handy and Harmon operated from 1915 to 2002. The factory had distinctive triangular windows that let in air, but were constructed to prevent workers from dropping precious metals outside.

The factory owned by another local manufacturer, the Jelliff Corp., has been located in Southport center since 1902. Jelliff Industries, unlike most of its counterparts, continues to produce wire and mesh. Southport also became known, not only as a center of commerce, but also for its gun manufacturing at Sturm, Ruger & Co., although its building there does not serve as a manufacturing facility.

In the early 1950s, factories in town employed the largest number of workers. By 1960, 47 factories were still operating here. But the heyday for manufacturing in Fairfield was already past, and the economny shifted to service businesses, professional offices, banking and finance, education and, most recently, an upsurge in restaurants.

Fairfield officials say $3M state grant for Bullard factory site could add $25M to cost

Fairfield received a grant to help renovate a 4.9-acre lot at 81 Black Rock Turnpike, which has sat empty for about a decade next to the Fairfield Metro Station.

Fairfield received a grant to help renovate a 4.9-acre lot at 81 Black Rock Turnpike, which has sat empty for about a decade next to the Fairfield Metro Station.

More than six months after state officials awarded Fairfield a $3 million grant for a proposed development that would transform a vacant lot near the Fairfield Metro train station into housing and shops, the town may not use it after all.

The grant had been set to cover the remediation of contamination at the site of the former Bullard Machine Tool Company factory as the first phase of construction, but those overseeing the project say its legal terms would make it nearly a third more expensive.

The developer and Fairfield's head of economic development said they're leaning against accepting the money after learning that wages mandated by the terms of the grant would, in their estimation, jack up the project's cost by 20 to 30 percent, which amounts to at least $25 million.