A: Hillyer College, the Hartt College of Music, and the Hartford Art School.

Q: Speaking of Colt, how did Samuel Colt make a living while raising money to produce his revolutionary sidearm?

A: He was a master showman, traveling along the East Coast and down the Mississippi River, demonstrating the effects of laughing gas on human subjects. He billed himself as "Dr. Coult." Thanks to Lynn Ferrari for that one.

Q: The heroism displayed by firefighters in New York City has brought new respect for firefighters everywhere. What 1864 disaster spurred the formation of Hartford's paid fire department?

A: The fire that destroyed the original Colt armory. It put 900 men out of work and occurred in the midst of the Civil War, when the Union army desperately needed Colt firearms. (Source: "The City of Hartford: 1784-1984," by Ellsworth Strong Grant and Marion Hepburn Grant.)

Q: Where was the parsonage of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, leader of the Puritans who settled Hartford?

A: Near the present intersection of Arch and Prospect streets. (Source: "Structures and Styles: Guided Tours of Hartford Architecture," by Gregory E. Andrews and David F. Ransom.)

Q: Wallace Stevens won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry just before his death in 1955, but over the nearly 40 years he lived in Hartford, his fellow residents knew him primarily as a bond lawyer and vice president of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., now The Hartford. Stevens walked the mile or two between his home and office at 690 Asylum Ave. every day, often composing along the way. Where is the Stevens house?

A: At 118 Westerly Terrace.

Q: What major Hartford thoroughfare started out - in part - as Rifle Street, or Rifle Lane?

A: Capitol Avenue. In purchasing a 25-acre tract near the Park River in 1850, the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co. also repaired a dirt road running along the river and named it after the company. Rifle Street ran approximately from Laurel Street to Washington Street and became part of Capitol Avenue in 1874. Sharps Rifle was succeeded on the street by Weed Sewing Machine, then Pope Manufacturing, then Pratt & Whitney.

Karen O'Maxfield turned up that one. Sources: "Hartford: An Illustrated History of Connecticut's Capital," by Glenn Weaver, and "History of Hartford Streets," by F. Perry Close.