Retsof is a
hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
and
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP) within the town of
York
York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...
in
Livingston County,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, United States. The community, situated southwest of the city of
Rochester, is off
New York State Route 63
New York State Route 63 (NY 63) is a state highway in the western part of New York (state), New York in the United States. It extends for in a generally southeast–northwest direction from an intersection with New York State Route 15 ...
approximately one mile east of
State Route 36. As of the
2010 census, it had a population of 340.
It was founded by a man named William Foster, Jr., who reversed the letters of his name to name the town, and it was the site of one of the world's largest
salt mine
Salt mining extracts natural salt deposits from underground. The mined salt is usually in the form of halite (commonly known as rock salt), and extracted from evaporite formations.
History
Before the advent of the modern internal combustio ...
s until its collapse in 1994. A new mine, the Hampton Corners mine,
is located near
Mount Morris, about to the southeast.
The original population of Retsof was mostly of
Italian origin; they lived in a
company town
A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...
where the salt mine owned the houses and a store and maintained the small village. The Italian families lived together with a few non-Italians. The others who were mostly bosses lived on the "Avenue" in nicer houses with indoor plumbing.
In addition to the salt mine, there was a small railroad—the
Genesee & Wyoming Railroad (G&W)—that took the salt to the "Main Lines" in neighboring towns. The G&W remains active today as a branch line of the
Rochester & Southern Railroad.
Geography
Retsof is in northwestern Livingston County, in the southeastern part of the town of York. It is bordered to the east by the hamlet of
Piffard and to the west by
Greigsville. NY 63 leads southeast from Retsof to
Geneseo, the Livingston
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
, and northwest to
Batavia. The
hamlet of York is north of Retsof.
According to the
U.S. Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...
, the Retsof CDP has an area of , all land.
The community is drained by Salt Creek, a northward-flowing tributary of Bidwells Creek, which flows northeast to the
Genesee River
The Genesee River ( ) is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York in the United States. The river contains several waterfalls in New York at Letchworth State Park and Roch ...
.
Demographics
Retsof Salt Mine
In 1994, the Retsof Salt Mine was the largest salt mine in North America, and the second largest in the world. Three hundred people worked within the of excavated space, below ground, extracting salt from a natural deposit for use as road salt, table salt, and in industry. In March 1994, the ceiling in one of the large underground chambers collapsed, the first of a series of effects caused by groundwater entering the salt deposit, which had been dry for all of the 110 previous years of mining at the site. Over the next 21 months, the mine cavities collapsed and filled with water. Mining operations scrambled to work the accessible areas before the spreading flood, until operations were suspended when the mine was fully filled with water, in 1995. The effect of filling all this space lowered the
aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...
, leaving many drinking water wells dry, and led to surface
subsidence
Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope mov ...
, even sinkholes wide, damaging structures and highways. or of additional subsidence is expected to take place over the next century.
[
The ]U.S. Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March ...
studied the effects of the mine collapse on groundwater hydrology in the surrounding watershed.
See also
* List of geographic names derived from anagrams and ananyms
These are geographic anagrams and anadromes. Anagrams are rearrangements of the letters of another name or word. Anadromes (also called reversals or ananyms) are other names or words spelled backwards. Technically, a reversal is also an anagram, b ...
References
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Hamlets in New York (state)
Hamlets in Livingston County, New York
Census-designated places in New York (state)
Census-designated places in Livingston County, New York