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A Bristol CT company that started in 1888 making bicycle bells ended up, within three decades, as a division of General Motors and one of the largest ball-bearing makers in the world — and the fortune it created helped build the park where Bristol families still gather every summer. This is the story of New Departure, one of the most important manufacturing names in Bristol’s history, and a name many residents have heard but few know the full story behind.

AI-researched · Human-reviewed by Fernando Rivera · June 15, 2026

Key Facts

• New Departure Manufacturing Company was founded in Bristol, CT, in 1888, led by the Rockwell family, originally producing bicycle bells — the “New Departure” name referred to a thumb-operated bell design that was a departure from older hand-pull bells
• In the 1890s, during the national bicycle boom, New Departure developed and popularized the coaster brake — a foot-operated rear brake that became a standard feature on bicycles across the country
• As the bicycle boom faded and the automobile industry grew in the early 1900s, New Departure retooled its Bristol factories to manufacture precision ball bearings for cars, trucks, and industrial machinery
• General Motors acquired New Departure Manufacturing Company in 1916, making the Bristol-based “New Departure Division” one of GM’s earliest component-supplier divisions
• Albert F. Rockwell, who led New Departure through its growth into a major bearing manufacturer, donated the land that became Rockwell Park starting in 1914 — a gift tied directly to the company’s success
• By the mid-20th century, New Departure’s Bristol plants were among the city’s largest employers, with thousands of workers on Bristol’s east side producing bearings for GM vehicles nationwide
• In the 1950s, GM merged New Departure with its Hyatt Bearings division to form New Departure-Hyatt (NDH), consolidating Bristol’s role in GM’s bearing supply chain for decades
• As GM restructured its parts operations in the late 20th century, large-scale bearing manufacturing in Bristol wound down, closing out more than a century of the New Departure name in the city

Local Context

For most of the 20th century, if you grew up in Bristol, someone in your family probably worked at New Departure. The company’s plants on Bristol’s east side, in the Pequabuck River valley, ran around the clock turning out bicycle parts and then, for far longer, ball bearings that ended up in cars built across the country. Alongside Bristol’s clock and watch makers — the businesses that earned the city its “Clock City” nickname — New Departure helped define Bristol as a precision-manufacturing town long before ESPN put the city on the map for sports broadcasting.

The clearest physical reminder of New Departure’s impact isn’t a factory — it’s a park. Albert F. Rockwell, the man most responsible for turning New Departure into a bearing-industry powerhouse, began donating land to the city in 1914 that became the 104-acre Rockwell Park off Center Street. The same family wealth that came from bicycle bells and GM bearing contracts paid for the cobblestone buildings, sports fields, and open space that Bristol residents still use for the “Rockin’ Out at Rockwell” summer concert series and pool season today. It’s a direct line from a 19th-century bell factory to a 21st-century summer night in the park.

New Departure’s story also fits into a bigger pattern in Bristol’s history: homegrown manufacturers that started small, got pulled into national supply chains, and then either evolved or wound down as those industries changed. Barnes Group, founded in 1857 and still operating today as a global aerospace and industrial company, took the first path. New Departure, absorbed into General Motors and eventually folded into broader corporate restructuring, took the second. Both stories are part of why Bristol’s downtown revitalization conversations — including the $12 million plan approved by City Council in May 2026 — so often talk about honoring the city’s manufacturing roots while building toward what comes next.

Why It Matters

New Departure’s legacy isn’t just a history footnote — it shows up in daily life across Bristol. Rockwell Park, one of the city’s most-used recreational spaces, exists because of New Departure’s success. The generations of skilled machinists, tool-and-die workers, and production-line employees the company trained helped build the local workforce that companies like Barnes Group still draw on today. And the rise-and-fall arc of New Departure — from bicycle bells to a GM division to a closed chapter — is a reminder of why Bristol’s current push to diversify its economy, fill downtown storefronts, and attract new employers matters: the city has been through major industrial transitions before, and come out the other side.

Community Impact

Sources to Verify

• City of Bristol official website: bristolct.gov
• Connecticut Digital Archive (historical records and photographs): ctdigitalarchive.org
• Bristol Historical Society local history archives and exhibits
• Bristol Public Library local history room
• American Clock & Watch Museum, Bristol CT, for regional industrial history context

What BristolBot Says

“New Departure started out making bicycle bells in Bristol in 1888, then became a General Motors ball-bearing division and one of the city’s biggest employers for decades. The Rockwell family fortune it created is the same money that gave Bristol Rockwell Park — so next time you’re at a summer concert there, you’re standing on New Departure’s legacy.”

Know a Bristol history story we should cover? Email riveraf30@gmail.com with story tips — BristolTalks publishes corrections fast.

AI-researched using public records. Reviewed and approved by Fernando Rivera, R Unlimited LLC, Bristol CT.