Sandy Hook did not have electricity until 1922; it took another twenty years before the service made its way into Newtown. The Hawleyville area got power in 1928.

The telephone was invented in 1875, and within two years the Bell Telephone Co. was founded. The Southern New England Telephone Co. was founded in 1882, the same year telephone service first appeared in Newtown.

Newtown was one of the earliest towns to receive telephone service. In 1882, there were 12 subscribers in town.

 A lake, a bridge, a road and an early school district all were called Zoar. In the Old Testament, Zoar was the only one of the cities of the plain to escape destruction. Lot and his daughters took refuge there.

 The “jangling” in Jangling Plains Road refers to contention or wrangling. A 1711 dispute over a parcel of land here became known as the “jangling division.”

 Button Shop Road gets its name from one of the factories along the branches of the Pootatuck which manufactured buttons and combs from horns and hooves. In the mid 1800’s, Newtown had more buttonshops than any other town in the state.

 Boggs Hill Road skirts the area referred to in the town records of 1716 as “Ye Great Boggs and Ye Little Boggs.”

 Church Hill Road originally was known as the North Cross Highway. It runs from the center of Sandy Hook to Main Street, where Trinity Episcopal Church and, until recently, the Congregational Church stood.

 Sugar Street and Sugar Lane were named for the large sugar maple trees that lined the road from Newtown to Bethel. Farmers tapped these trees for maple sugar and syrup. Many of the trees came down when the road was widened and paved by the state in the 1920s.

 Borough Lane forms the southern boundary of the Borough of Newtown.

 Lake George Road does not run along the bank of a body of water. It was named for two local property owners, Thomas Lake and George Smith.

 The Newtown-Danbury poorhouse was built on what is now Poorhouse Road in 1842 at a cost of $600.

 Wendover Road acquired its picturesque name in the 1940s when residents voted by an 8-7 margin to replace “Carcass Lane.” In the minds of many of the neighbors, the old name brought back unpleasant memories of a slaughterhouse previously located at the end of the street.

 Three governors of Connecticut were born or lived in Newtown. Isaac Tousey, elected governor in 1846, also served in the US Congress and Senate. Henry Dutton became governor of Connecticut in 1854, and Luzon B. Morris was elected in 1869.

 Women’s activist and one-time national president of the League of Women Voters, USA, Anna Lord Strauss lived in Newtown and donated land for the open space program.

 Arthur Spector, who served on Newtown’s Planning and Zoning Commission for many years, had been a charter player for the Boston Celtics basketball team.

 The rubber-lined linen hose was invented in Newtown by Isaac B. Harris.

 Although Newtown’s population barely topped 4,000 in the early 1940s, more than 400 men and women from town served in the armed forces during World War II.

 Newtown Christian Church began as the Newtown Church of Christ, initiated by the Go Ye Chapel Mission based in New York. The congregation met in Edmond Town Hall until land at the corner of Rock Ridge Road and Route 302 was purchased “for the consideration of $1” from Clifford Hansen of Brookline, Maine, in 1968. The church was built the following year.

 Newtown’s first charter was adopted by a vote of 1,312 to 123 on October 9, 1961, and became effective on May 30, 1962. The charter set forth the rights, obligations, and powers of the town, prescribed local elections and voting districts, and outlined the duties of the Board of Selectmen and all elective, appointive and administrative officials. It defined the legislative parameters of the town meetings and made provision for taxation and management of finances.

In 1859, Newtown’s first resident Roman Catholic priest, Dr Francis Lenihan, organized the present parish under the patronage of St Rose of Lima. He also purchased the land for St Rose Cemetery.

 There is a legend that the alcoholic spirits distilled on Still Hill Road were made into toddies nearby on what became known as Toddy Hill Road.

 Great Ring Road reflects a local legend that this was the spot where hunters — and possibly Indians — formed a great ring to drive the game to the top of a hill.

 Hattertown was the site of several hat factories during the 19th century.

 Ninety percent of Connecticut’s Indians died as a result of diseases brought by the European settlers.