Notable Stories
A dial painter suffered from radium-induced sarcoma of the chin. The workers, mostly young women, used their mouthes to form sharp points on the brush that they would dip in and out of radium paint. Image from the book "Deadly Glow - The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy."
Story by Ann Quigley
(This article was first published The Waterbury Observer in September 2002)
It was 1921 when 17-year –old Frances Splettstocher landed a job at the Waterbury Clock Company on Cherry Street. It was a glamorous job, for she and her young colleagues worked with radium – the wonder substance of the new century. The girls used their keen eyes and nimble fingers to paint tiny numbers on glow-in-the-dark watches that were all the rage at the moment. World War I soldiers had worn the futuristic devices in the trenches, and now in peacetime everyone wanted one, so Splettstocher and dozens like her were hired to help produce millions of the watches during the early 1920s.
Waterbury's Derek Poundstone successfully hoisted 913-pounds in the deadlift event at the 2011 World's Strongest Man Competition at Wingate University in North Carolina. It was a personal record.
(The following is an account of Derek Poundstone's attempt to win the World's Strongest Man contest in North Carolina, USA, in September 2011. There were nine other athletes in the finals of the competition, but the Waterbury Observer focused primarily on Poundstone because he lives in Waterbury, Connecticut. He's our strongman. In tribute to the other athletes we've included more than a dozen images of their attempts to bring home the championship to their hometown, or country. It was an historic competition.)
Story and Photographs By John Murray
The massive bodies of strong man athletes are over-sized shock absorbers that cushion the pounding and abuse sustained during training and competition. Running fifty yards with 1000 pounds on your back places unimaginable stress on knees and ankles and lower backs. Pulling a two-ton Mack Truck 100 feet, pressing 342 pounds overhead for repetitions, and dead-lifting over 900 pounds are athletic feats that few men in the world can perform.
Mind Of Steel
Story and Photographs By John Murray
Some might think that genetics and large muscles are the key to Derek Poundstone’s stunning rise to the title of America’s Strongest Man.
They would be wrong.
Born Again
Story and Photographs
By John Murray
Back in the 1960s Uniroyal launched an international marketing campaign that asserted Naugahyde was obtained from the skin of an animal called a Nauga. The company, based in Naugatuck, proclaimed that a Nauga shed its skin multiple times a year, so it didn’t have to be slaughtered to collect its hide. The ads stated the Nauga was a squat, horned monster from the jungles of Sumatra, and every customer who purchased a Naugahyde couch from Uniroyal received a small Nauga doll.
It was brilliant marketing - fun, humorous and effective.
My Dog Brother
Column By Chelsea Murray
My house mate Christina and her family are putting their 13-year-old German Shepherd to sleep this weekend after a losing battle with cancer. Christina went home to visit Cheyenne for a final time and is struggling with the impending loss. I live with seven girls in a house at Marist College and we’ve all spent time consoling Christina, and talking to her about this difficult family decision. In the process we’ve all opened up about our own dogs and how they’ve impacted our lives. I’ve come to realize that everyone has a dog story.
Out Of Control
Is this the price of victory?
Story By John Murray
Photograph originally appeared in the New York Times
It was a crisp autumn evening in 2006 and Hasheem Thabeet was about to begin his basketball career at the University of Connecticut. Thabeet spent the first 16 years of his life 7,600 miles from UConn, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where sultry air wafts into West Africa from the Indian Ocean and the average temperature in November is a toasty 86 degrees.
Climb Your Own Tree
By Chelsea Murray
Julia Butterfly Hill
Activism isn’t dead.
While it’s true young people aren’t inspired the way America’s youth were in the 1960s by Bob Dylan, nor are they protesting the war in Iraq with the same passion and conviction that their parents and grandparents opposed the war in Vietnam, by no means is activism dead.
A Life Well Lived
A Column by John Murray
August 1, 2005
Sarah B. Murray and her 16-year-old granddaughter, Chelsea Murray
In the early morning of June 17th, 2005, the Waterbury Observer lost its staunchest supporter, a woman who invested $10,000 to help launch the Observer 12 years ago, a woman who floated needed capital into the business when we veered towards the rocks, a woman who championed the paper across all corners of America, and beyond.
The Observer lost its biggest booster that fateful day in June, but more significantly, I lost my Mom.
Into The Wild
Hiking Eighty Miles Through A Guatemalan Jungle To The Lost City Of El Mirador
Story and Photographs By John Murray
Photo: Freelance writer Dave Howard hiked 40 miles through the largest tract of rain forest left in Central America to reach the lost city of El Mirador, and interview Dr. Richard Hansen.
Editor’s Note: The following story is an account of a 12 day adventure that transpired in July 2003 when Observer publisher, John Murray, travelled into the jungles of northeast Guatemala with his friend, Dave Howard, who was on assignment for Travel & Leisure Magazine. Murray was invited along to photograph the expedition and fired off 45 rolls of film. Murray damaged his Canon EOS camera during the journey and 60% of the images were unusable, and totally out of focus. After emerging from the jungle, the good film languished inside the photo department at Travel and Leisure for ten months, and was ultimately never used in Howard’s feature story. By the time the images were returned to Murray, and he had gathered notes, tapes and recollections from Dave Howard, nearly a year had elapsed. For the past 18 months the story lay buried beneath a jungle of details inside Murray’s head. Thankfully, and with great joy and relief, the story has been extracted from the thicket of Murray’s brain. We hope you enjoy the adventure.
To Catch A Monster
Excellent Work By The Waterbury Police Department Leads To Arrest In Controversial 1993 Rape Case
Story by John Murray
At the end of another long day at police headquarters, Neil O'Leary climbed into his car and headed home. For the past 15 months, O'Leary had served as the acting chief of the Waterbury Police Department. As he headed home on that September night two months ago, O'Leary, 46, had a lot on his mind. The city had begun testing 11 candidates for the permanent chief's job, and O'Leary was stressed about taking the oral and written exams.