Program

Historic Transportation

Subject

Building, Transportation

Location

282 Rush Scottsville Rd, Rush, NY 14543, USA

Lat/Long

43.003387, -77.721065

Grant Recipient

Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum

In 1909, the Erie Railroad built a new depot building at a station on their Avon branch line in the hamlet of Industry, formerly named Oatka, located in the town of Rush, just south of Rochester, New York. The new depot was built to serve the New York State Agricultural & Industrial School, a reformatory for male juvenile delinquents that had been built in 1907 on former farmland in the hamlet.

Prior to the new depot’s construction, the November 16, 1908 Democrat and Chronicle reported that the Board of Managers of the State Agricultural & Industrial School had lodged a complaint with the State Public Service Commission against the Erie Railroad regarding the inadequate condition of the railroad’s facilities at the institution. It noted that when the site for the institution was chosen, the railroad provided assurances “a suitable station that would harmonize with the buildings of the institution would be erected.” The complaint included that New York State:

… expended $600,000 on the institution buildings and will expend $100,000 more before they are completed; that the 125 employees of the institution and many relatives of the 500 inmates have frequent occasion to use the present station, and that during last December more than 600 people boarded trains at Oatka every week.

The railroad constructed a new depot the following year and the October 27, 1909 Scottsville Bee noted that the stop was now called Industry instead of Oatka.

Passenger service to Industry Station continued until September 1941. The depot building was then used for storage until being abandoned in the late 1950s. In 1971, the Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society purchased the building from the railroad, then the Erie Lackawanna Railway Company. The building was restored for use as a museum, opening to the public in the early 1980s.

In 2010, the Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society became the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. As of 2025, the museum continues to educate the public on railroad history in the restored depot at Industry. They also offer rides on a demonstration railroad consisting of a two-mile track linking with the New York Museum of Transportation.

Links

• Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum: