Of these tribes the Podunks occupied territory now lying in the towns of East Hartford and South Windsor, and numbered, by differing estimates, from sixty to two hundred bowmen.

They were governed by two sachems, Waginacut and Arramamet, and were connected in some way with the Native Americans who lived across the Great River, in what is now Windsor.

[5] In 1659, Thomas Burnham (1617–1688) purchased the tract of land now covered by the towns of South Windsor and East Hartford from Tantinomo, chief sachem of the Podunk Indians.

Manchester (then known as Orford Parish, adopting the name of a prominent English factory city) separated from East Hartford in 1823.

[5] Beginning in the late nineteenth century, residents began to form tax districts for fire protection, street lighting, sanitation, and other public works improvements.

The East Hartford Fire District was granted a charter by the General Assembly in 1889 and organized in June 1891.

[9] The 75-acre (30-hectare) site was decommissioned as an airport in the 1990s, and donated to the state of Connecticut by United Technologies in 1999, and a new Rentschler Field opened as a stadium with capacity of 40,000 people.

Pursuant to a lease agreement with the State, UConn plays all its home football games at Rentschler Field.On July 16, 2015, it was announced that the stadium had been named Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in a deal between Pratt & Whitney and UConn.

The town has seen significant demographic changes in recent decades due to immigration from Hartford, as well as white residents leaving the city to other suburbs.

East Hartford is home to the headquarters of Pratt & Whitney,[19] part of the Raytheon Technologies conglomerate.

The city is dotted with industrial and suburban office parks, and in the early 2000s, urban planners strategically situated a regional stadium, Rentschler Stadium (construction completed September 2003), and a hunting and camping focused department store, Cabela's, on the then vacant former Pratt & Whitney company airfield, Rentschler Field.

[24] Nearby, Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field is home of the Huskies football team.