Q: What famous figure in 19th-century Hartford become the namesake of a town in Iowa? (It's not Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens.)

A: Sigourney, Iowa, was named after Hartford poet Lydia Sigourney. According to the town's Web site, she showed her appreciation by providing trees that were planted on the courthouse grounds. She also presented 50 volumes to the town library.

http://www.sigourney.com/history/index.html

Q: In March 1919, the Hartford Board of Aldermen made it illegal (punishable by a fine of $100 and six months in jail) to display the red flag, conduct public meetings, or distribute "radical" literature if you belonged to a certain labor organization. What was it?

A: The Industrial Workers of the World, or the "Wobblies." Speakers from the IWW had praised Russian Bolsheviks and condemned capitalism at a meeting at the Grand Theater, attended by about 2,000 people. This came at the height of the Red Scare, when paranoia about Russian and Lithuanian immigrants led the U.S. Justice Department to make mass arrests - many of them blatantly unconstitutional. Following a nationwide sweep on Jan. 2, 1920, more than 100 aliens sat in Hartford jail cells, awaiting deportation hearings. Some had been incarcerated merely for visiting other prisoners; Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer told a congressional committee that such visits amounted to attending an illegal revolutionary group's meetings - prima facie evidence of membership. (Source: "Connecticut," by Albert E. Van Dusen.)

Q: For whom is Pope Park named? (Hint: It's not a pope.)

A: Col. Albert A. Pope, whose bicycle-manufacturing complex on Captiol Avenue became Hartford's largest employer in the late 1890s. To provide housing for his workers, who numbered nearly 4,000 at one point, he bought much of the property around his factories. Columbia Street and Park Terrace were laid out and lined with new houses, while a 75-acre tract was donated to the city as park land. Pope further donated $100,000 for the park's maintenance. (Source: "The Miracle of Connecticut," by Ellsworth S. Grant.)

For more on Pope, read "Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machine: The Life and Times of a Bicycle Tycoon Turned Automotive Pioneer," by Stephen B. Goddard. You can visit Goddard's Web site at stephengoddard.com.

Q: The enclave of houses on Columbia Street, off Capitol Avenue, remains one of the most beautiful residential neighborhoods in the city. Yet the street owes its name to an important chapter in Hartford's manufacturing history. How so?

A: The houses were built for employees of the Weed Sewing Machine Company on Capitol Avenue, where Columbia bicycles were manufactured.

Q: The Troutbrook Grille & Brewhouse on Bartholomew Avenue occupies one of the Parkville neighborhood's many old industrial buildings. What business originally operated from it, more than a century ago?

A: The Champlin Box Co. (Source: Hartford Courant article, 4/12/02)

Q: Bill Savitt - beloved jeweler, civic leader, and all-around Hartford booster - opened his first store in 1919. Where was it?

A: Park Street. (Source: "How the Other Half Lived: An Ethnic History of the Old East Side and South End of Hartford," by Robert E. Pawlowski and the Northwest Catholic High School Urban Studies Class, 1973.)