SHELTON, Conn. (WTNH) — This Week in Connecticut History, a mammoth fire changed Shelton forever.
On March 1, 1975, explosions and a raging fire at the B. F. Goodrich Sponge Rubber mattress factory in Shelton blew out windows and shook the neighborhood. The fire raged until the next day.
No one was killed, but the fire was no accident.
Eight men on the company’s board of directors were found guilty of firebombing the factory for insurance money. At the time, the FBI called it the biggest industrial arson case in America.
Nine hundred people lost their jobs, and the Shelton economy took years to recover.
