On May 15, 1656, the Court of the Colony of Connecticut in Hartford affirmed that the town of Stratford included all of the territory 12 miles (19 km) inland from Long Island Sound, between the Housatonic River and the Fairfield town line.

In 1662, Stratford selectmen Lt. Joseph Judson, Captain Joseph Hawley and John Minor had secured all the written deeds of transfer from the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation for this vast territory that comprises the present-day towns of Trumbull, Shelton and Monroe.

[10][11] Shelton was the site of one of the largest arson fires in the United States history.

It happened in 1975 when the Sponge Rubber Products plant (formerly owned by B.F. Goodrich) was set on fire.

Charles Moeller, president of parent company Grand Sheet Metal Products, was acquitted of criminal charges, but in a suit under civil law (where preponderance of evidence suffices to establish a factual claim), a jury found in 1988 the insurer was entitled to disallow claims on the fire losses, based on the finding that the company's top officials arranged the fire to claim insurance money.

[12] The explosion that destroyed the Sponge Rubber Plant on Canal Street in 1975 marked the start of the decline of Shelton's industries.

[13] In 1995, Sikorsky Aircraft closed a plant off Bridgeport Avenue that manufactured electrical components for helicopters.

[citation needed] With the completion of Route 8, new office spaces and businesses were attracted to the town, due to its Fairfield County location coupled with low costs of doing business as opposed to places such as Stamford or Greenwich.

Major firms such as Tetley Tea, TIE Communication, I.T.T., Black and Decker, Sikorsky Aircraft, Gama Aviation, Chesebrough-Pond's, Tetra-Pak, General Electric, and Bunker Ramo.

[14] Efforts are underway to restore nineteenth-century industrial buildings in the downtown area; those that were beyond repair were demolished in the late 1990s and early 2000s and replaced with the Veteran's Memorial and a farmer's market.

The 10-acre (40,000 m2) Riverwalk Park next to the Veterans Memorial was created on the site of the former Sponge Rubber Plant.

Several downtown streets have been reconstructed as part of a streetscape improvement project: sidewalks were reconstructed with brick and cobblestone, trees were planted, and some power lines were rerouted underground to improve the appearance of Shelton's central business district.

[17] On May 30, 2008, producers and staff for the upcoming movie All Good Things shot one scene on Canal St. in downtown Shelton.

The scene was underneath the train trestle and involved one of the characters dragging a body and dumping it into the Housatonic River.

[citation needed] On July 31, 2009, a line of heavy thunderstorms with weak rotation spawned an EF1 tornado, which touched down with wind speeds between 95 and 105 miles per hour.

He won in a special election following the death of Richard O. Belden, who had represented the town for 32 years.

Members are political appointees and receive no salary and derive income from fees charged to serve legal papers.

[27] The City of Shelton's goal is to preserve at least 15% of the land as permanently protected, locally controlled open space in the following three forms: City of Shelton Public Open Space properties, Privately owned farmland protected by the purchase of development rights, and properties held by the non-profit Shelton Land Conservation Trust.