Best Web Design in Troy, NY (2026)

Web Design for Troy, New York

Troy sits on the east bank of the Hudson River across from Albany and earned its "Collar City" nickname by manufacturing the detachable shirt collar that dressed much of 19th-century America. It was one of the nation's wealthiest cities during the Industrial Revolution, powered by iron, steel, bells, and precision instruments, and it is federally recognized as the hometown of Uncle Sam. Today its remarkably intact Victorian downtown, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a lively arts and food scene keep the old industrial city vital.

AppWT works with Troy, NY businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Troy

Also known as. The Collar City. Home of Uncle Sam.

History. Settled in 1787, incorporated as a town in 1791, and chartered as a city in 1816; it is the seat of Rensselaer County. Named after ancient Troy during a post-Revolutionary vogue for classical place names; its Latin motto is "Ilium fuit, Troja est" ("Ilium was, Troy is"). Around 1900 Troy was reputedly the fourth-wealthiest city in the United States, built on iron and textile fortunes. Hannah Lord Montague invented the detachable shirt collar in Troy in 1825, launching the industry that defined the city. Kate Mullany founded the nation's first sustained all-female labor union, the Collar Laundry Union, in Troy in 1864; members won a roughly 25% wage increase after a six-day strike. By Congressional resolution on September 15, 1961, the 87th Congress saluted Samuel Wilson of Troy as the progenitor of the national symbol Uncle Sam.

Local economy. In the late 1800s and early 1900s Troy was said to produce about 90% of the detachable collars worn in America. It was once the second-largest iron producer in the nation after Pittsburgh and site of an early American Bessemer steel converter. Cluett, Peabody & Company made the famous Arrow brand shirts and collars in Troy. W. & L. E. Gurley Company built precision surveying instruments whose theodolites helped map the American West. The Meneely Bell Company cast church bells shipped worldwide. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (roughly 6,900 students), Hudson Valley Community College, and Russell Sage College anchor the modern economy, alongside an emerging cluster of video-game studios.

Culture and community. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que operates a popular location in a historic downtown building overlooking the Hudson River at 377 River Street. Brown's Brewing Company is a longtime Troy brewery; a 1990s-era Uncle Sam mural is painted high on a nearby building. The Troy Waterfront Farmers Market runs weekly, outdoors in summer and indoors downtown in winter. The December "Victorian Stroll" fills the historic streets, and the fall "Enchanted City" steampunk festival is a signature event. The Troy Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving is the oldest race in the Capital District. The Troy Sentinel published "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" ("A Visit from St. Nicholas") for the first time on December 23, 1823.

What makes Troy distinct. Troy's grip on the collar trade was so complete that laundering those collars created a female workforce large enough to build the country's first lasting women's union. New York State's all-time record high temperature, 108 degrees Fahrenheit, was recorded in Troy on July 22, 1926. The well-preserved streetscape has stood in for old New York in films including The Age of Innocence, Scent of a Woman, and Ironweed, plus HBO's The Gilded Age. Kurt Vonnegut lived in Troy and used the city, thinly disguised as "Ilium," in several of his novels. Troy fielded some of the earliest professional baseball teams, the Troy Haymakers (1871-72) and the National League Troy Trojans (1879-1882).

Troy Landmarks and Local Life

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - founded in 1824 and considered the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world, home to the EMPAC performing-arts center
• Troy Savings Bank Music Hall - a Second Empire building famous for its concert-hall acoustics
• Oakwood Cemetery - a scenic bluff over the Hudson and the burial site of Samuel Wilson, the original Uncle Sam
• The Hart-Cluett Mansion - a Federal-style townhouse faced in white marble, now a museum
• Emma Willard School - founded in 1821 as an early institution for the higher education of women
• Burden Iron Works - which once operated the most powerful water wheel of its era