Cobblestone construction became a home-grown Seaway Trail architectural style through the ingenious use of local materials. Local masons perfected this building method between the opening of the Erie Canal and the Civil War, drawing on stones available to farmers, oxen to haul them, and labor to build with them. Borrowing from popular architectural styles, these masons created structures that became status symbols. Cobblestone masonry originated around Rochester and spread with pioneers moving along the Great Lakes Plain, and the area around Childs became one of the densest clusters of cobblestone buildings in existence. The district and surrounding area included churches, houses, a schoolhouse, shops, and halls built from the 1830s through the 1920s, with examples featuring flat lake stones in herringbone pattern, Medina sandstone quoins and sills, V's joints, field stone veneer with V'd joints, brick lintels, limestone quoins, sandstone quoins and lintels, and six-inch-thick lake stone veneer over plank.
