Incorporated from Bolton in 1808, Vernon is a Tolland County town that today encompasses the former city of Rockville and the villages of Talcottville and Dobsonville. In the 19th century, the success of the Rock Manufacturing Company, the first mill on the Hockanum River, gave rise to a booming textile industry, known for its woolen products, and to the city of Rockville. After World War II, the textile industry waned and that, together with the suburbanization of once-rural Vernon, shifted the community’s commercial hub to areas nearer the highways that had sprung up. Famed town residents include 19th-century still life painter Charles Ethan Porter and “The Rockville Rocket,” singer Gene Pitney.