William G. Andrews, current Brockport resident and former professor at The College of Brockport, provides insight on the community through time, featuring a collection of vintage images in a book released last April.
Brockport Through Time is his fifth local history book. During the twentieth century, Brockport was transformed from a village whose economy relied heavily on manufacturing to a college town. The Erie Canal that had given the town its birth, growth, and prosperity faded as a means to ship freight, and rose as a recreational area. An educational hub grew out of a “Normal School” with a few hundred two-year students to a four-year comprehensive college and graduate school with 8,600 students. Streets, transportation, and retail businesses all changed dramatically. Yet, much remained the same.
The short book documents the most visible and vivid aspects of the village’s transformation.
Brockport Through Time is available at Lift Bridge Book Shop in Brockport and from area book retailers.
