Question: While researching the History Mystery from last week (answer to last week’s question is below), not surprisingly, a new piece of our history surfaced. The map in the photo is a development that was laid out in the early 1900s. If anyone reading this lives within its boundaries, their abstract should show its name. So the question is: what was it called?
Last week’s answer: The house in last week’s photo, built in 1920 by Albert Zahn, is located at 2781 Belgium Road (most of us probably think it’s located on East Genesee Street). It is on the left side of the road if you are heading east, just before Lincoln Avenue. The upper window has been changed, but the big change is the front yard — there isn’t much of one right now.
The road in front has seen many changes over the years. While doing the research for this History Mystery on fultonhistory.com and the microfilm of our local newspapers at the library, nothing definitive was turned up as to when the front yard was greatly reduced. In talking to Ann Gates, the current owner, the suspicion is that it was done at the time that the “project,” or New York Ordnance Works, was built right after our entrance into World War II. At that time traffic through the village increased greatly with many workers traveling to the site.
An article that did turn up pertaining to East Genesee Street is interesting, though not entirely related, since it is much earlier than the erection of this house. The March 28, 1912, article said that a resolution passed petitioning the state and county highway commissioners to extend the Cicero-Euclid-Baldwinsville Road from the village line through East Genesee Street to the intersection of Salina Street. The portion of the street from Salina Street to the D.L.&W. tracks was to be paved with bricks and from the D.L.&W. tracks to the village line, a distance of 1,800 feet, was to be built of macadam.
Who knows — with more research, the actual paving that took away the front yard may surface.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
