It was not his original plan, but a West Haven native-turned-entrepreneur has done the next best thing for an iconic city building. James McMahon a city businessman and now Guilford resident is turning the former Hughson-Miller American Legion Post 71 building into a multi-unit residential site.
It was not his first choice.
McMahon, son of the late James “Hooker” and Alice McMahon was a West Haven High School athlete, known for his play with the Blue Devils football team in the early 1970s. He was part of the 1973 state championship team. He joined his father’s insurance business, and then branched it out into development.
It was part of his plan to preserve the former Post 71 home at 377 Main St., because of the early memories he had. A holiday visit to the rotunda with its many memorials had a lasting effect on him.
“One year when I was six or seven, my father took me to the American Legion on Memorial Day after the parade,” McMahon said. “He took me into the rotunda where all the memorials, and I saw people at the various memorials crying.”
Upon asking his father why there was crying, he was told these were the families of those who lost their sons during wartime.
“That stuck with me,” McMahon said. “Each year we would go back, and we would see the same people.”
Like many veterans’ organizations, Hughson-Miller Post 71 lost many members through the decades and there were few to fill the ranks. The once flourishing organization found itself shutting down after many decades.
“When it heard the building was for sale with plans to merge the West Haven post with Milford, I contacted the national Commander in Indiana and the Connecticut commander as well as the Post 71 commander. I offered to buy the building, pay off the $40,000 outstanding debt, and put $200,000 in the post’s coffers,” McMahon said.
Those offers were rejected, and it was on to preserve the building. McMahon hoped he could preserve the iconic rotunda.
“I purchased 337 Main St. for the sole purpose of preserving the rotunda and keeping it open to the public,” he said.
But by that time, the building had been closed and the memorials were transferred to City Hall’s Planning and Zoning room. McMahon hoped to broker a deal where the memorials could be returned to the rotunda, but several attempts and proposals failed.
The next best option was to preserve the building. An application to convert it into apartments was approved and work began.
The front steps that led into the former Rotunda collapsed under their own weight after years of neglect, while the original doorway façade could not, under American Legion rules, contain the Post logo that graced its frame.
A compromise was made with American Legion officials to allow the famous logo to be included in an alternate signage. The idea is to preserve the history of the building as a Legion post, paying homage to its original purpose.
Some issues remain with city officials, and McMahon is hopeful those could be ironed out and the building opened with some semblance of preserving the site’s history. The building lies within the city’s historic district what amounts to “preservation” has been a point of some difference of opinion.
When it is completed, McMahon hopes to highlight the former use of the building in some form, letting future generations know that for a century veterans of all stripes were honored by an organization housed on the site.
History of Post 71
American Legion Post 71 was chartered on Dec. 13, 1919, and named after West Haven’s Hughson brothers, Harold, and Walter. Harold fought and died at Saint-Mihiel in September of 1918. Walter was killed in Meuse, France five weeks later.
In 1946, Post 71 amended its name to include brothers Robert and Fred Miller. Both fought in World War II with Robert killed at Guadalcanal in August 1942.
The first permanent home of Post 71 was a blacksmith shop on Curtis Place, which was purchased in 1928. It served until the Main Street location was built and opened in1950 with its dedication the following year.
The memorial building was dedicated on April 15, 1951, “To the memory of those West Haveners and All that fell in the service of their country. It was dedicated in the name of those who offered their lives that Justice, Freedom and Democracy might survive to be the victorious ideals of the peoples of the world.”