Lake Ontario Southern Shore

Rochester, New York

Known in its founding days as "The Flour City" due to its location on the Erie Canal, the earliest means to connect a farmer's grain to regional/City manufacturing and production, Rochester is on the path of the Genesee River as it feeds into Lake Ontario. The Erie Canal waterway system, in our local region an east-west path, was primarily constructed (dug out by man, real horse power, and early pulley/crane systems) to connect farmers and local trade to international markets. Upstate has traditionally been known and remains the major apple production area of New York State and early days the Erie Canal provided the means to ship dried apple products in box-wooden crates and raw apples in wooden barrels to Europe.

Though Rochester's official associated name is and will forever remain to the long time locals, "The Flour City", meaning shifted as the Erie Canal lost its founding function and with the growth of the Lilac Festival (The Flower City).

Most recent years, the Erie Canal has regained popularity as a waterway for boating tourists providing bed and breakfast and stop-n-shop opportunities. Bike trails line the upper banks of the Canal as it travels through New York State.

Rochester is rich in historical significance, the Underground Railroad and the Freedom Trail (The St. Lawrence Seaway) providing means for slaves to Canada; voting rights led by Susan B. Anthony, the primary meeting ground to develop strategy and to write woman's history (along with Stanton from nearby Seneca Falls, NY) and the abolition movement with Frederick Douglass. Rochester is also known as the home of George Eastman (Eastman-Kodak).

What would Rochester be without a slide show?...

From time to time in the future I'll share Rochester and the regional area from my own collection of pictures of "the good ol' days" and some more current of the place I call "home" in Upstate New York along the Lake Ontario (Southern) Shoreline.

For now, to support my Home City, I'll share the tour that Rochester has offerred the world in pictures.

http://www.visitrochester.com/phototour/phototour/index.cfm?action=cover&tourID=22


To view more of the author's photography images from Upstate, NY scroll down to the base of Lake Ontario Shoreline blog.