Best Web Design in Danbury, CT (2026)

Web Design for Danbury, Connecticut

Danbury is a Fairfield County city that once made a quarter of all the hats in America and still answers to the nickname 'Hat City.' It sits beside Candlewood Lake, Connecticut's largest lake, and blends its industrial past with a modern economy anchored by healthcare, furniture, and clean-energy manufacturing. Its felt-hatting boom left a darker legacy too: the mercury poisoning that gave the world the phrase 'mad as a hatter.'

AppWT works with Danbury, CT businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Danbury

Also known as. Hat City. Hat City of the World. Hatting Capital of the World. Bean Town (historical).

History. Hat-making began in the late 18th century when Zadoc Benedict discovered a way to make felt by adding heat, moisture, and pressure to animal pelts, reportedly molding hats on his bedpost; by 1809 there were 56 hat shops in town. Danbury's abundant beaver and rabbit populations plus thickly wooded forests for firewood made it an ideal hatting location; by 1800 it produced about 20,000 hats a year, more than any other U.S. city. During the Revolutionary War, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington rode roughly 40 miles in 1777 to warn militia and residents as British troops advanced to burn the Continental Army's Danbury supply depot. By 1887 about 30 factories were producing 5 million hats per year; the industry peaked around the turn of the century when Danbury made roughly 24% of America's hats (1904). The industry collapsed over the 20th century: only six manufacturers remained by 1923, and the last Danbury hat was made in 1987 when a small Stetson-owned factory closed.

Local economy. Praxair, the industrial-gases company (now part of Linde), was long headquartered in Danbury and among its largest and best-known employers. Ethan Allen, the furniture maker founded in 1932, is headquartered in Danbury. Danbury Hospital (part of the Nuvance Health / Western Connecticut Health Network system) has served the region for over 130 years and is a major employer. FuelCell Energy, a clean-energy company, is based in Danbury. The historic economic identity was felt hat manufacturing, once earning the motto 'Danbury Crowns Them All.'

Culture and community. Modernist composer Charles Ives was born in Danbury; his birthplace is preserved as a museum. Famed contralto Marian Anderson lived in Danbury for more than 50 years on her estate, Marianna Farms; her studio is now part of the Danbury Museum. Ives Concert Park, a 40-acre venue with an amphitheater, hosts summer concerts and theater and draws over 60,000 people annually. The Danbury Trashers, a minor-league UHL hockey team (2004-2006) owned by trash-hauling magnate James Galante and run by his teenage son, became a cult-favorite subject of a Netflix documentary after Galante's RICO arrest. The Great Danbury State Fair ran from 1821 to 1981 and, at its close, was the oldest continuously operating annual fair in the United States.

What makes Danbury distinct. Mercury used in felt-making poisoned many hatters, producing tremors known locally as the 'Danbury Shakes' and feeding the phrase 'mad as a hatter.' Danbury was reportedly called 'Bean Town' long before Boston adopted the nickname, thanks to the area's abundant bean crops noticed by settlers in the late 1600s. A Danbury company, Perkin-Elmer, ground the flawed primary mirror for the Hubble Space Telescope; the tiny miscalibration (about 1/50th the width of a human hair) blurred early images and required a costly space-shuttle repair mission. The Danbury Fair Mall land sold for about $170,000 per acre, at the time the highest price ever paid for land in the Danbury area.

Danbury Landmarks and Local Life

• Danbury Museum & Historical Society - whose campus includes the 1790 John Dodd Hat Shop, the 1785 Rider House, a Little Red Schoolhouse, and the Marian Anderson Studio
• Charles Ives Birthplace Museum on Mountainville Avenue - open by guided tour
• Danbury Railway Museum - housed in a restored 1903 train station on White Street
• Danbury Fair Mall - built in 1986 on the old fairgrounds and one of the largest malls in Connecticut at about 1.3 million square feet
• Candlewood Lake - the largest lake in Connecticut
• Federal Correctional Institution - Danbury (FCI Danbury), which helped inspire parts of the Netflix series 'Orange Is the New Black.'