by Bonnie Moore, Chili Town Historian
Hoffman’s Service Station and Grill became Towne Plaza Restaurant and is now Rite-Aid, corner of Route 259 and Buffalo Road, North Chili. Photograph and information provided by Chili Town Historian Bonnie Moore. Photo, (circa 1940), notes that the service station is the “largest, most modern service station between Rochester and Buffalo.”The fun thing about being interested in history is the chance to be a Time Traveler. We can catch glimpses of a prior time and take a peek into what once was. A part of Chili that was called “The Crossroads” in the early 1800s was North Chili. Perhaps that was because it centered around two major thoroughfares – Union Street (then called Braddocks Road) and Buffalo Road. (Routes 259 and 33.)
Let’s not step back that far. If our Chili Time Traveler can back-pedal to North Chili in 1950, what would one see? In short order, by comparing 2012 with 1950, you would be tempted to say, “Where on earth did downtown North Chili go!”
Few original buildings remain. A sentinel at the northeast corner, the Olde Stagecoach Inn has been rejuvenated. The grand old lady now sports new makeup and apparently likes her new image as she stands straight and tall. She is a testimony to those who saw her worth and saved her. She won’t mind if we reveal her age which is circa 1815.
The yellow brick Community Center, once the North Chili Elementary School, still sits near the Towne Plaza on Buffalo Road. It changed careers over 40 years ago.
A few houses remain. On the south eastern side are two homes that belonged to two prominent families back then. Their names, in spite of the implications, were the Spotts and the Staines.
The old blacksmith shop disappeared in the middle of the night a few decades ago but not before it became an antique shop, and later the Pizza Shack, feeding hundreds of hungry people, many of them Roberts Wesleyan students. Perhaps when it was torn down, the developer did not quite grasp the historic nature of this little old fieldstone and cobblestone building erected in the late 1800s.
Now called the Chili Doll Museum, a building near Orchard Street was once a grocery store known as the Red and White. And yes, the North Chili Cemetery is still there and open for business.
But our Time Traveler spinning to this new millenium will ask, “Where’s the little ice cream shop? Where is Perry’s Palace, also known as the Towne Plaza Restaurant which gave way to what is now Rite Aid Pharmacy? Sandy Tulloch’s Plumbing shop stood where Walgreen’s is located. Several vintage houses at this site have also disappeared.
Alexander’s Market stood for many decades where the Hess Station is today. Roland’s Service Station is now a video store and Subway shop. And before it became Jitters, that building housed Kreckman’s little department store and after that the North Chili Post Office.
Where is the Methodist Church and parsonage? It changed locations further down the road near Westside Drive. One Step Tree and Lawn Care now occupies that space. The Erickson Barber shop is gone, too.
Our Time Traveler must admit, though, that what was a thriving commercial corner as a ‘crossroads’ then has morphed into a sparkling and vibrant area of Chili. The traffic pattern and bright new buildings reveal a bustling, forward-looking community. We did enjoy the ‘good ole days’ when life may have been easier and folks were friends. But before our Time Traveler gets too dreamy- eyed about the past, let’s understand the continuity of one age surviving to the next.
“Those who appreciate the past invest in the future.”
