Your home town than and now!!!! chime in all

Went on a trip today to area I used to live in, is what triggered this post. So your home town how has it changed?? Is the farm at the end of town now a housing development? Is Jack's garage and service station now a chain grocery store? And is Betty Sue's house now a vacant lot? For the record that area I visited has changed little by most standards.

Where I grew up, if some one came down Riva Road we stopped to wave because it was probably some one we knew. Now it is hard to find an opening to get out of the driveway.

I've had a time elapsed view since I was old enough to be cognizant of such things and that started about 2 or 3 years of age based on the things I've remembered and the times they occurred which my parents confirmed.

It was rural, fence lines, hedgerows, and family size farms just about everywhere outside the nearby cities. If one looks at the 1952 aerial photography, its extremely hard to imagine what it was like back then. Most of the land was cleared, in use, and its not the friendliest terrain with the hills we have.

The horizon was dark when I was young, except for a few streetlights, it was devoid of light pollution, now its like a city and the lights illuminate the inside of my home and the hillside. The diner that abounds our 20 acre pond has lights that will make a shadow inside my home and its well over 600 yards away.

Walmart is what replaced one of 13 farms on what was a rural county road, (the end of it) The store takes up the land between that road and the state road. I can see this store, TSC and many other business's from my kitchen window. Lots of nearby fields are now condos or apartment buildings, most occupied by foreigners. The Caucasian is fast becoming a minority. Thinking way back, its hard to imagine what the native american indians had to endure when this great land was settled by foreigners. That same scenario is repeating itself.

Just looking out my kitchen window up on this hill, what I remember and how it is now, would take up a lot of space to describe. Thankfully many areas of town has remained the same or with minimal change, like our land here, the changes are mostly closer to the nearby city and the state road where stores, car dealers, and housing developments have been built.

The population of the town of Ledyard in southern Cayuga county has remained stable for almost 200 years. Agriculture still rules. The size of the farms has changed, remarkably so. My family has farmed here for almost that long. The railroads have come and gone. There used to be three tracks running north/south between Cayuga and Owasco lakes. School houses replaced by bloated bureaucracies now. The town and county have some nice equipment to maintain the roads with, but can't afford any supplies, or much help.

Here's what Newsweek had to say about my hometown and me in 2001, and it hasn't gotten any better.
Death of a small town

I could not tell you if it has changed or not. The town I was born in I might have lived in for year if even that long

My town Riverside NJ was an industrial (B.F.Goodrich H.K Porter Metals Collier MacMillan book company and was quiet and peacefull . Now there is a community organizing store front in the center of town where you can lodge your complaints and send money back from where you originated from to get your relatives over here. Need I say more?

When I graduated HS my hometown didn't have a stoplight, now we have 6 and 2 more will soon be added. The population was around 3000 and there were more jobs than working age residents. I only knew a couple of people that didn't work an drew "a pension". Most families raised a garden and had a few hogs and at least a butcher calf. No one was rich but everyone lived pretty well and you knew nearly everyone.
Now the population has grown to 9-10,000. 40% is on some kind of government assistance and won't work. Very few have gardens, there are few hogs in the whole county and the only cattle are owned by those of us who depend on them for a living. 70% live below what the government calls the poverty level and you don't know your next door neighbor. All of this "progress" in 40 years.
On the "plus" side. We have better roads and even the poorest has at least 2 cars, a fancy phone and all the tattoos they want. I haven't figured that one out yet

What is a home town? I have lived around Dewey Ok, Galt Mo,Braymer Mo. Jamesport Mo Princeton Mo Ravanna Mo Then to Abilene Tx area. Most have went down hill in last 30-40 years except Abilene Tx. Princeton has just about burned up, Had big fire couple weeks ago. Took out East side of square. Ravanna all that's left is few houses. Galt has school and post office and couple stores. Jamesport has big Amish community so its tourist trap. Havent been to Braymer lately so don't know its situation. Dewey just looks dilapted.

A bit sad, when I grew up we had 2 hardwares, 2 lumber yards, 3 groceries, about a dozen factories, 2 sporting good stores. 3 clothing stores. 50 years later and a four lane to Mansfield 10 miles away and theres one hardware, one grocery, no lumber yard. Town is still the same population, but only a shadow of what it once was. Everyone works and shops in Mansfield. Glad I moved to Michigan, at least distances involved have stopped that here.

I was born in Vancouver, B.C. In the mid 50's we learned that the city had a population of 200K. That has changed a 'tad'.

Town near were I grew up was 1200 souls then ,now over 8000, and son to go to 12,000. I moved away 12 years ago , and don't regret it a bit . My wife still drives the 25 miles back to work there , and we will travel there to shop some ,but I would never live there again . Too urban. Back in the sixties , this was a farm town . Had a MF dealer , a feed mill etc., all long gone now. Just Walmart and other big chain stores.

My home town used to have a sugar factory , Borden Condensery , Leonard Refinery , 2 grain elevators , Ferro Stamping (auto parts manufacturer) , Johncock Forestry , Schlumberger Oil well Service , Dowell , Four new tractor/equipment dealerships , many family hardwares , Regional Center for Develovmentaly Dissabled and many I'm probably forgetting. ALL GONE! CMU , Casino and big box stores and car dealerships, camper dealerships and restaurants. Great place to SPEND money. Making money...not so much. Hundreds of part time jobs and many of them end and are replaced by college students come September. As long as our anti-trust laws go un-inforced, it will only get worse.

I live in that area, what was your hometown?

the little ND town I grew up in had a population of about 40 people, Post Office, Bar, Restaurant, Blacksmith shop, Grocery store, 3 churches and a town hall, is pretty much gone. Only thing there now is one of the original houses, and about 15 mobile homes all occupied by the hired hands of three brothers who farm about 150,000 acres between them. Kinda sad.

Dick ND

when i was little the pop. was 217 now it is 735 or so .it was a village until the late 70s when the two larger towns on each side put in a new sewer system and it had to be incorporated to get state money to hook up . the feed mill is still the same except for a big shed to hold the semis and chemicals and there are two bigger grain bins. a different family runs it now. the ready mix moved out south of town and an auto repair and lawn service occupy that place now. the old newspaper/ interstate power /woodworking shop is now suppose to be an art gallery. the barber shop bar pool hall is now just a bar. the east side grocery is now a homemade soap and hand lotion store but she still sells across the old original counter . the new post office is still the same except the boxes are now keys instead of combination and is only open half days. the bank is now a hair salon. the hardware is now a bar the west side grocery was bought by the bar and was joined to it and so was the restaurant . the restaurant part is closed now. that takes care of main street . the old coal shed is now low income housing . the lumber yard is torn down and that is now the new fire hall and low income housing. the old fire hall is still there with an old 1917 international harvester fire truck in side. the church is still pretty much the same except they took out the pews and put in tables. the gas station is owned by a trucking company, and the old auto repair shop is now owned by a cement contractor. the school is closing this year it was converted to a day care and charter school many years ago it was built in 1926. the farmer that owend the land to the south is selling off his dads farm his boys were both hell raisers and were killed in snowmobile and motorcycle accidents the land norhh of town is low and swampy and is in a flood zone. so it cant go that way.

Nothing stays the same for long. 100 years ago there were five starch factories in my hometown and potato warehouses galore. It was the potato capitol of the world. Now, you'd never know it. The stores on Main Street that used to be grocery, butcher, drug, hardware, farm equipment (yes, two farm equipment dealers on Main St, Massey Harris and Case), have all been replaced by lawyers offices, real estate, financial services, martial arts, restaurants, chocolate shops, health food, pet shops, a few barber shops remain, and some of the bars remain although nowhere near as many. Furniture, paint, banks, title companies, specialty goods of many kinds, etc. The car and machinery dealers and gas stations are mostly on the edge of town along with the super markets. No Wal*Mart but there is a K Mart with a big empty parking lot in front of it. I expect it will soon be vacated and something else will be in there. Huge Fleet Farm store. Everything changes. To be expected. We're a very mobile and transforming society.

In the 50's went to a one room school house north of town on Highway 75. Probably had one truck a hour and 6 to 8 cars a hour. Trucks had to shift gears at least twice to make the grade. Moved the highway west one mile in the middle 60's to get it on the edge of town. Traffic still probably tripled. In the middle 90's made it a 4 lane south of town and now traffic car count is up to 6000 a day. Truck traffic is unreal also. You can call this highway the I-70 I-80 cut off. If our great Governor didn't have the state 209 million dollars in the hole, this highway would be a 4 lane to the Nebraska line. Our city leaders were bragging in the paper that now we have 3 stop lights in town. Well whoop-pe-do.

My home town is probably much the same size as when I was a kid but we have lost a lot of business places. The bank, rail line and grain elevators are all gone. Still got a post office and a Co-op for the basics but many go for the big grocery store in the next town with bigger selection. Typical of many small towns on branch lines.

They rolled up the sidewalks in my hometown, about 35 years ago. Nothing but one Church left.

Same little river village, I stayed away from there when I was growing up and stay away still, to many druggies. Population of 300, 3 bars in town and 1 outside of town.

Looking back on it, my town was a somewhat idyllic little place, almost Mayberry-ish. The commercial district was compact, only one about two blocks long, stores/businesses sharing walls along either side of its length. It had two side streets that turned off main street. Growth was blocked on the south by the railroad, and on the west by the Sabine River. Main street ended abruptly at the river bridge which crossed over to Texas.

But this compact layout contained an amazing assortment of businesses. There were two hardware stores, two drug stores, one super market (Piggly Wiggly), a furniture store, a Western Auto, a bank, a hotel, a branch library, a cafe, two or three general merchandise stores, two barber shops, a shoe repair, a plumber's office, a doctor's office. One of the town's two dentists had his office in the upstairs of an auto parts/repair business. In the center of town stood the movie theater.

The side streets provided another diner, a newspaper office, a pool/domino hall, a feed store and a cotton gin. Along the railroad track was a depot which in my time served as a tomato packing shed. The Chevrolet dealership anchored one end of main street, the Ford dealership the other. A welcome addition in the mid-50s was the Frosty Shop, a hamburger joint which became the central hub of teenage social life.

In the late 40s and early 50s, it retained much of its old bucolic flavor. There were hitching rails along main street, and it was not unusual to see mule-drawn wagons and saddle horses tied in front of stores. Saturday was the day when the country folks came to town. They came early and stayed late. They shopped for necessities, yes, but mostly it was a social occasion. For the kids it was double-feature movies at the theater, followed by a root beer float or banana split at one of the drugstores.

One of the town's more endearing features was that there was not a single lawyer's office there.

Fast forward 60 years: The town is still there, and the buildings on both sides of the main drag appear to house some kind of commercial activity, but I can't recall what. The businesses that gave the town its character are gone. Now even the trademark bridge is gone, replaced by one accessed by a loop around the back of the business district. Most of the town's 1,200 or so inhabitants are much younger than me, so I suppose they can't miss what they never knew.

The last I heard, it is still there. It seems to have a consistent population of 97 people at every census. Main street was only a block long; no business's left there anymore. It's just a bedroom community now. The PO was combined with the next town up the line. No place to even buy a soda in the town; no place to buy groceries or gas either.

When I was a kid there were a couple general stores and couple farm stores around my area now there are 2 Super Walmarts and 2 Lowes within 8 miles of my place plus countless restaurants,motels and all different types of businesses.

Here the small town stays the same. Every time a baby is born, a man leaves town!

I grew up in a hamlet (un-incorporated village) in NYS. It was formed at the intersection of several roads including NYS route 7. We had a traffic light, a corner store with gasoline and a tiny post office, a volunteer fire department, a branch of the county library housed in what was a tiny house, a diner where I washed dishes starting at age 14, a gin mill (bar), a Quaker meeting house, a church, an antique dealer, a carpenter, a florist/greenhouse and a plumbing, heating and electrical contractor (my dad). And maybe 60-70 homes in a half-mile radius. About 4 of those were small farms with some livestock.

Today it still has the traffic light, firehouse, corner store (minus the gas and post office), diner, Quaker meeting house, church and a newer, larger library and a public sewer. I think an attorney lives in the antique dealer's home. It was a good place to grow-up and probably still is, but a little different. Used to roam all over on foot, bicycle, dirt-bike or snowmobile but more houses now and land lost to I-88. Kids don't have the space and freedom I had growing up but they do have the Internet.

I grew up on a small dairy farm just 5 miles south of Cincinnati in northern Kentucky.My grandpa bought the farm in 1920.He moved from another farm 2 miles closer to town.My Dad always spoke of neighbors who farmed when he was a boy,but when I was growing up,in the '60s,only 2 older farmers were near by,and they did not have any tractors,just a few cows.In 1948 my Dad and uncle bought the first hay baler in northern Ky.,and baled hay everywhere,but by my youth,we only baled for around 4 or 5 customers.The area was older suburbia,and slowly filling in with newer suburbia.We actually finished a lot of yards for new homes since we had the only tractors,and plowed about 40 or 50 gardens every year.Also custom work-a lot of small custom bush hogging-vacant lots-vacant fields,or old pasture land.Cut and sold firewood -maybe 40 p/u loads a year.But that all gradually diminished.
As usual,time,'progress',and eminent domain took it's toll.The farm got reduced from 44 acres to 39 to 33,due to road rerouting,and later,more road construction(I-275).That took out the dairy barn,and tool sheds.An arsonist burnt the only remaining barn.Dad rebuilt and went to beef cattle.But eventually,the farm was sold,developed,and more road rerouting,and now it is unrecognizable.Urban sprawl has taken over.When I was 12yrs old we could ride our bikes on the highway in front of the farm on Sunday,without any traffic-by the time I was 22,the road was non stop cars day and night.
What I grew up on,is long gone,there was nothing to show my kids,let alone my grand kids.Too much change.It used to make me sad,but I have made my peace with it.Just fading memories for myself.Mark

I grew up on a farm five miles from the nearest town. That little town's story is typical of such towns in the Upper Midwest. In the 1950s, with a population of maybe 250, it had a lumber yard, two grocery stores, a hardware store, a repair garage, a barber, a bank, a meat locker, and, of course, two cafe/taverns and a grain elevator. Today, it still has the grain elevator, a cafe/bar, and a population of maybe 100. That's all. Everything else is gone.

The village closest to where I grew up looks a lot like it did fifty years ago. It's still an unincorporated village with about 50 homes, only there are no businesses anymore, and it now has a sanitary sewer system (mostly funded by the state of Iowa). One new home has been built in the last thirty years. It's about six miles from a larger town of 10,000 people, so it's now a bedroom community.

Among the other towns in the county, the three towns that are able to retain and attract manufacturers are the ones that are growing, the rest of the towns are treading water as bedroom communities or are shrinking.

The little place that I grew up in has not changed a lot. There was a New York Central train track running through the center of it, with an old post office, a freight platform, a little "mom and pop" type store, and a feed mill. Add to that a milk processing plant and an old hotel. That was it. Maybe 25 to 30 houses, all along a "main" street and a couple of side streets. There was no such thing as "blocks." We had no idea what the city folks were talking about when they referred to blocks.
The feed mill was called "the beanery" and there was only occasional activity there. The freight platform was long abandoned. The post office was closed in the 1980s, and in the building is now some sort of railroad club. The milk processing plant was known as the creamery. They made cheese and butter. The little store was run by a brother and sister. They were older folks, and the store was closed around 1980. All of the rest stayed pretty much the same except for some new developments on the "outskirts" so to speak and the occupants of the houses have changed. Some generationally, some by attrition.
This little place - too small to be a town, village, or even hamlet - was situated about 5 miles north of Skaneateles Lake and about 4 miles from the village of Elbridge, New York.
As I recall as a child, the winters were harsh, summers were humid, and farming was the main surrounding activity. I worked for several of the local farmers when the season and occasion warranted it. Pitching bales, shoveling manure, pulling weeds, mowing, and whatever else I could do to get a little bit of spending money.
Today, there is not much that I miss from New York state. Politicians are crooked, taxes are high, weather is lousy, etc.
The things that I DO miss are Heid's Hotdogs in Liverpool, New Hope Mills from Moravia, Hoffman's hot dogs made by Syracuse Sausage Company, and Doug's Fish Fry in Skaneateles. All within a reasonable drive back in the old days. So much for nostalgia. I have no burning desire to go back there. My life and home are HERE now. All of my friends, contacts, and resources are where I now live - in a city of all places. BUT... I enjoy not having to drive 5 miles or more to the nearest grocery store or hardware store. I also enjoy having municipal water, sewer, and trash pickup services.

I don't consider any town as my home town. The village is 15 miles away, that's where I went to k-12, so I guess that's about it. I was never around it much outside of school. 16 miles in the other direction is another village. 30 miles away is town with 2 stoplights, groceries, supplies, actual stores. The closest village has two gas stations (both small, one service, one sells some feed), one grocery store, one bank, couple tractor repair places. 16 years ago there were a little under 350 people, 6 years ago a little over 250. The grocery store has one register, and not a lot bigger than a larger house. You save enough money and have more stuff if you go 30 miles away, plus you can get actual supplies in that town. I get to the village maybe once or twice a year, not much reason to go when I always need more than just groceries when I go to town, I do have my diesel delivered from there, but don't know if I'll switch some time.

Redmond Washington in the 70's.
One blinking yellow light downtown.
Now, well, thanks to Microhard

Grew up in a town of 1000. 3 grocery stores, 2 car dealers, restaurant, bar, bank, feed mill, hardware store, liqour store, Doctor, and 3 gas stations.

Today all are closed, except a decrepit old grocery that sells mostly pizza, and the beer store. Have to drive 5 miles to buy gas. Population still about 1000. At least 5 actually have a job.

Most really small rural towns, look like the town in the movie Nebraska. Nothing to do and no way to make a living locally, now that family farming and small manufacturing are gone.

In one 40 mile stretch of highway there are 9 post offices, but only 3 grocery stores and 1 drug store, 5 gas stations. No wonder the Post Office is losing money.