If Wayne County seceded from New York to became our 51st state, only three entire states would surpass it in apple production. In the early part of the 20th century, North Rose claimed the title of the busiest railroad shipping station for fruit in the country. Hundreds of farmers planted millions of apple trees just inland from Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. The ability of a huge body of water to moderate winter temperatures created a micro-climate with the perfect temperatures for apple trees to flourish. Some local fruit farms also grew pears, peaches, and sour cherries.
Small commercial centers grew to provide these farmers, farm laborers, and their families with stores to buy food and other supplies, hardware, and appliances. They were also a natural location for schools, churches and community organizations. North Rose was such a commercial center. One of its principal functions was to provide a convenient market for farmers to sell the goods that they grew.
After the railroad passed through North Rose, fruit warehouses and other enterprises grew along the tracks and brought a population and business boom to the hamlet of North Rose.
North Rose 1940 is an unusually thorough history of the nearly 190 households in North Rose at the time of the 1940 Federal Census. The story of each family is told in complete and entertaining detail.
Photo: The Rebekahs were the Women’s Auxiliary of the Odd Fellows
Please Notify Me
When The Book Is Available
North Rose 1940 . . . you won’t want to miss this book! It will be published in 2023. We don’t know what the price will be, so we can’t take payment for orders this far in advance of publication.
Here’s what we would like you to do: Fill in the information on this simple form. We will announce the publication date, price, and other specifications to you a few weeks ahead of publication.
Photo: Gray Brothers and Harry Quereau’s Store Fronts
Help Us Make
A More Accurate History
If you or a member of your family lived in North Rose around 1940 perhaps you have family memories that should be included in this book. We would appreciate you sending us any information that you would like to share. If you would like to examine the information we have gathered, thus far, about your family, please ask` and we will email it to you shortly after we have completed that section.
Photo: NRCS 1942-1943 Basketball Team
We Could Use Your Help!
One thing we learned as we worked on this book is that it is much easier to find where North Rose residents lived if they owned their home rather than rented a house or apartment. That is because the tax and assessment records always list properties under the name of the property owner rather than the tenant. Here are the names of the 1940 renters in North Rose. Do you know where any of the people on this list lived in 1940? Names on the North Rose map (please download the map) will probably be the owners’, not the tenants’.
Please email any information that you collect to [email protected]. Please include the street and the tax number or other identifying information for the renter’s homes.
We will credit you in the footnotes of North Rose 1940 for any renter’s addresses that you identify. We will present the person who gives us the most (correct) answers (about renters’ homes) with a genuinely good and appropriate gift.
Map: Designed by Alex Skutt
North Rose Map
Above is a map that we made by carefully matching the scales of multiple maps in Photoshop. Faded in the background is an aerial photograph of North Rose. Then there is a road map, a 1935 Sanborn Insurance map (that’s the layer which has drawings of buildings), and the layer of the names of the property owner in 1940. This is one-eighth of the complete map (the northeastern corner).
You can see the whole map by clicking here.
Scroll to the lower right-hand corner of the complete map. You will see plus and minus symbols in circles. Clicking on these will zoom you in and out.
If you are looking at the map on a phone or other portable device, you can zoom by moving two fingers closer together or further apart on the screen.
