Picture Enfield - Then And Now

ENFIELD, CT — Today's installment of this periodic Enfield history series, courtesy of the Facebook group Picture Enfield, features a business which rose to worldwide prominence when Enfield was still a small farming community, and lasted more than three decades. The company's formal name was Pilch Meat Breeders Inc., but every Enfield resident age 55 and older remembers it as Pilch's Farm.

Founded in 1936 by Chester Pilch, the business covered an expanse of over 200 acres on Moody Road. Hazardville was the headquarters for what became a global operation, with farms in four states as well as Mexico, Canada and Ireland.

At one time, Pilch was the second-largest breeder of chickens in the world, reaching a peak of 24 million annually. In 1959, Pilch received a patent for a truck-mounted blower that sprayed feed into his chicken pens.

A fire in December 1962 caused several thousand dollars worth of damage and resulted in the loss of many young chicks, but Pilch soldiered on until health problems forced him to sell the business to DeKalb Agricultural Research Corp. in 1969. Shortly thereafter, DeKalb moved the operation to Statesville, N.C., resulting in the loss of 365 jobs in Enfield.

Pilch and his brother Francis started a greenhouse business, Pilch's Plant Lovers' Paradise, but another fire doomed that enterprise. He fell into debt and lost 107 acres to a bank foreclosure in 1979. Three years later, his remaining 117 acres were sold at auction.

At one time, Pilch was the largest landowner in Enfield; his Moody Road acreage bordered Elm Street prior to the realignment of those roadways and construction of the new police department building, and later the Enfield Senior Center, in the early 1990s.

Chester Pilch passed away in 1997 at age 85.

Here is part of the old Pilch property, as it looks today.