Browse Items (1267 total)

Charlotte Amusement front.jpg
Postcard from a birds-eye view shows the lakeside amusement park near the height of its popularity. The green-roofed building near center likely is the Hotel Ontario, a connection between the area's past as a resort during the 1870s-80s, and its…

Charlotte Beach front.jpg
Postcard depicts Lake Ontario Shore looking east toward the mouth of the Genesee River. At left is a sailboat moored at the West Pier; the red-roofed building at upper center may be a resort hotel called the Spencer House. Along the boardwalk and…

Five Arch front.jpg
200-foot stone viaduct was constructed by the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad sometime around 1856-57, crossing the outlet of Conesus Lake not far from where that creek joins the Genesee River. By 1859 the planned rail line between Mt. Morris…

Mt Hope Reservoir front.jpg
In 1873 work began on a water system for the city of Rochester--an earlier one had failed due to poor construction--that would draw from Hemlock Lake in Livingston County, nearly thirty miles distant. By this point the growing city of some 70,000…

Sheep Scene front.jpg
South Park, later taking its current name of Genesee Valley Park, was one of the last designed by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted prior to his retirement. Work began in 1888, and in 1893 he suggested keeping a flock of sheep on its west…

DEC Watersheds.jpg
New York Department of Conservation

High Falls front.jpg
At nearly 100 feet in height, the "High Falls" were a determining factor in the location of Rochester. Mills took advantage of the drop and the Genesee River's water flow in the form of mills, beginning in 1807 and especially in the years following…

Kodak Park front.jpg
Following the success of George Eastman's introduction of affordable cameras, the company's manufacturing infrastructure expanded rapidly. Postcard announces Rochester company as the "largest industry of its kind in the world." At its height in the…

Middle Falls front.jpg
A mile and a half downstream from Rochester's Upper Falls (later, "High Falls"), its Middle Falls originally had a height of 25 feet and were featured in Thomas Davies' 1768 engraving of the area. Here, we see one of two masonry dams built at the…

Lower Falls 2 front.jpg
Five miles downstream from here, the Genesee River empties into Lake Ontario at Charlotte, and the base of the falls has been a major spawning ground for salmon and lake trout until non-native fish like the alewife reduced their numbers. The…
Output Formats

atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2