Bridgeport, Connecticut Lottery Bridge across the Pequonnock, connecting the wharves on its east and west banks. Bridgeport Bank was established in 1806. In 1821, the township of Bridgeport became independent of Stratford. The West India trade died down around 1840, but by that time the Bridgeport Steamship Company (1824) and Bridgeport Whaling Company (1833) had been incorporated and the Housatonic Railroad chartered (1836). The HRRC ran upstate along the Housatonic Valley, connecting with Massachusetts's Berkshire Railroad at the state line. Bridgeport was chartered as Connecticut's fifth city in 1836 in order to enable the town council to secure funding (ultimately $150,000) to
Bridgeport, Chicago an unbroken, 46-year period (1933–1979) in which Bridgeport was home to the city's mayor. Richard J. Daley is widely acknowledged as being the architect of the Chicago's 'machine politics' for a large part of the 20th century. Daley's base was rooted largely in Bridgeport's working-class Irish population with the 11th Ward as his vanguard. The 11th Ward Democratic party, which is headquartered in Bridgeport near 36th Street and Halsted, remains a stronghold of the Daley family today, represented by Alderman Patrick Daley Thompson and on the Cook County Board of Commissioners by his uncle John P. Daley. John Daley is