Huntington History

Six years ago, I wrote a piece about Old Northport Road.   I wrote about the twist and turns that resulted in there being two somewhat parallel roads between Huntington and Northport.  https://huntingtonhistory.com/2013/11/22/the-road-less-traveled-by/

Tracing the evolution of the roads from the 1858 through the 1873 to the 1909 and 1917 maps was confusing.  Newspaper articles from the time helped to make sense of what the maps were showing.  Nonetheless, I made an error, which only came to light when my partner in historical research, Toby Kissam, alerted me to the existence of a 1908 survey of Roy Rainey’s property.

In the earlier piece, I asserted that the current Route 25A was built by Mr. Rainey because the historic route of the road was too close to his house.  I reached this conclusion after many eye-crossing minutes staring at and comparing the various nineteenth and early twentieth century maps listed above.  The recently discovered survey proves me wrong.  Mr. Rainey did petition to have the road moved further away from his house.  But the new road he built is today’s Washington Drive.  No part of it is Route 25A.

Photocopy of the 1908 survey of Roy Rainey’s property showing the relocation of Washington Drive.

This just shows that an historical account is rarely complete.  There is always more information to be found.  Even this new map, while correcting an earlier misconception, highlights the lack of a full picture of how the current path of Route 25A came to be.  At some point between 1873 and 1908, the section of Route 25A east of Washington Drive (labeled “Highway Leading From Huntington to Centerport” on the map above) was cut through.  As I write this, the why and when of that development is unclear (although the why must be because it was a more direct route).

Perhaps in another six years, another serendipitous discovery will provide the answer.