The year 1867 marked the small beginning of a great transformation in the tranquil nature of the Pembroke Valley.  In that year the Union Metallic Cartridge Company opened its works at the lower end of the lake, sandwiched between Barnum Avenue and the railroad tracks.  For many years it was to coexist with the resort-like atmosphere of the lakeshore, and for almost forty years Pembroke Grove, located just to the north, remained one of the city's primary destinations for family and group picnics.  But Union Metallic Cartridge provided a product that was in demand throughout America, in good times and bad, and through continual innovation it far surpassed any competition in the marketplace.  The seeds were thus sown for the subjugation of a beauty spot so that an industry and a city could progress.

Union Metallic Cartridge was from the onset a wholly owned subsidiary of the Remington Arms Company, headquartered in Ilion, New York.  The company produced a unique product — as the name explains, their gun cartridges were made of metal rather than the paper that had been universal with the competition.  UMC, as it came to be known, captured the lion's share of the world market and two-thirds of American production due to product superiority.

There was a down side to the presence of this plant in Bridgeport, however.  The nature of its work was inherently quite dangerous.  The book Remington Arms in American History describes the scene at the beginning of the last century:  "As the plant coasted along, the workers, following the ruts of routine, grew too familiar with the deadly materials they handled, and custom led to carelessness."  A series of explosions rocked the plant, and descriptions that appeared in the local press seem to have anticipated Hiroshima:  "A cyclonic cloud with a long tail arose in the air.  This funnel-shaped cloud kept its form for several minutes and was watched by thousands."

The situation reached a culmination on May 14, 1906, when 16 tons of gunpowder exploded at the company's unprotected powder magazine at Success Hill.  Nearly every other window in Bridgeport was blown out and damage was reported as far away as Long Island; people in Old Saybrook at first thought they had been hit by an earthquake.  Incredibly, there was no loss of life.  The newspapers screamed for someone's head.  In a front-page editorial entitled "Draw the Death Line," the Sunday Herald spelled out the prevailing sentiment:

The greatest problem Bridgeport has on her hands today is relative to the danger to which the citizens are exposed by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company.  The explosion of the four powder magazines last Monday has brought every person in the city face-to-face with an element of danger that is likely to create chronic nervousness.  The rather frequent intervals at which these explosions occur gives rise to apprehension that a great loss of life may result eventually.

Concerns begin to mount
Management proceeded at once effecting changes, that must have made the heads of those old complacent workers spin.  Four hundred acres were secured to the north of Stillman's Pond to create the "Powder Park" following the Herald's admonishment: "The only thing to do now is to prevent loss of life and property by placing the danger zone as remote from the city of Bridgeport as possible."  A new state-of-the-art plant on the north side of Barnum Avenue was commenced, and the aging overseers of the plant were replaced with young blood trained in cutting-edge scientific technique.

As the plant was being revamped a situation developed around the procurement of gunshot.  The operations required up to one hundred tons per day, but due to corporate mergers the sole source of supply in Illinois was able to escalate costs to unconscionable levels.  The head plant engineer, Harry H. Pinney, approached company president Marcellus Hartley Dodge with the proposal that UMC build its own shot tower and make its own shot.  The Remington Arms Company history records the unfolding of events:

That seemed like a sensible way to save (money), but shot towers are expensive and there were objections to obligating the company for what might prove a costly experiment.  However, Dodge, was convinced that Pinney was right, and he dared to go ahead on his own, putting up the money from his personal fortune.  The shot tower was begun in July, 1908, and completed seven months later, in February, 1909.  Ten stories high, one hundred ninety feet to the top of the flagpole, it dominated the Bridgeport skyline.  Realizing that it might be either as beautiful as a campanile or as obnoxious as a gasometer, Dodge insisted that no expense be spared to give it that campanile look and make it an ornament to the city.

Unprecedented growth begins
And what an ornament it was!  The tower, tallest building in Connecticut for many years, was the most prominent and remarkable structure in town and became a favorite subject for picture postcard makers. The building is "of red Brick construction with trimmings of concrete made by a secret process," said the Herald.  "This concrete cannot be told from real granite.  The concrete trimming were manufactured in Bridgeport after a process invented by John H. Flood.  The tower can be seen for miles in any direction.  It can be seen by mariners for miles on the Sound and by people many miles inland."  The shot tower functioned by dropping molten lead from a height of 133 feet into vats of cold water six feet deep.  The result was perfectly spherical, uniform shot. The Remington Arms history concluded their description of the shot making process by stating, “The people at Remington’s Bridgeport plant are as fascinated bv the shot tower as a small boy by an electric train.”

More remarkable progress came within a few years.  The year 1914, when president Marcy Dodge was a mere 34 years of age, saw the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo that was to plunge Europe into the abyss of World War I.  Orders for armaments flooded the company from overseas, and a huge expansion was underway almost immediately.  Seven four-story brick buildings were added first adjoining the original factory, and then a row of one-story structures farther up Helen Street for the manufacture of Bayonets.  The book, "The Story of Bridgeport", describes the scene at plant headquarters:

All day long a line of men stood outside the Remington Arms Company waiting to be hired and it was said of the firm that one new man joined the force every 20 minutes.  Suffice to say that 1400— 1600 men were taken on every month for nearly a year.  In November, 1915, 3000 were employed.  By April 1, 1916 the number had jumped to 16,000, and 20,000 more were expected.

The plant was supplying the bulk of armaments needed by both French and British government armies. But then an overwhelming order was received from the Russian government of Czar Nicholas II: 1 million rifles and 400 million rounds of ammunition.  This would certainly call for an increase in production facilities!  Under unimaginable pressure, UMC/Remington worked for five months, from March 16 to August 16, 1915, constructing the immense Russian Rifle plant, largest factory that had ever been built in the United States all at one time.  Its 13 parallel components — separated so that an explosion would not be able to start a chain reaction and take the whole plant -- contained 80 acres of floor space.  Construction was closely guarded by the National Guard against possible sabotage by anarchists and Bolsheviks.  For a time, this spot, overlooking old Stillman's Pond, was one of the most important and protected places on the planet.