Historic Schoen Place

For much of Pittsford's history, farming and agriculture-related businesses dominated the local economy. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1824 brought a commercial boom, including the construction of wharves and warehouses along the village's south canal bank. The arrival of the Rochester and Auburn railroad line in 1834, along with canal realignments in the 1850s and again after 1910, gradually shifted most village industries to Schoen Place on the canal's north bank. Renewed interest in the canal beginning in the 1970s led to the conversion of old mills, barns, and silos into today's shops and restaurants. At the west end of Schoen Place, barns, sheds, and homes were built in the 1870s for the H.H. Cronk Lumberyard. In the 1880s, the Schoen Brothers bought the complex, sold farm supplies, and dried fruit from local farms. In the early twentieth century, they also sold coal to residential and commercial customers and to canal tugboats, and in the early 1920s a large concrete and steel tower was built to store coal in elevated bins and load trucks by gravity. The Pittsford Flour Mill, one of Pittsford's best-known landmarks, reflects nearly 150 years of flour milling in the village. The first mill was built about 1830 near the site of the present building, and the current structure was built in 1882. It was enlarged in the early twentieth century, when a warehouse and silos were added, and its 130-foot-tall grain elevator dates from 1937. In 1953, Ted Zornow converted the complex to part of his grain and bean wholesale business, which continued until 1996, and the mill and silo were rehabilitated for office use between 2005 and 2009.

Pittsford, New York · United States