Finger Lakes history · regional story
Developing historyHoneoye’s reservoir, on paper
A proposed reservoir put Honeoye into Rochester’s water plans. A participant engineer’s 1932 account preserves stages that later summaries compress.
Research status
This history is still developing.
Parts of this account remain unresolved. Here is what the sources support, what is uncertain, and what we are looking for next.
About this review. Written and source-checked with AI assistance under an owner-authorized editorial process. This is not a personal review by Riley or an independent historian. Sources and unresolved questions are listed below; corrections are welcome.
- What the records establish
- The inspected paper documents a 1927–1928 approval sequence. The later local history supplies an account of the abandoned project’s ending in 1935.
- What remains uncertain
- Fisher was involved in the engineering work. We have not inspected the complete state application, later modification files, property maps or final abandonment record. No current water-rights conclusion is drawn.
- What we are researching next
- Retrieve Application 439, the original engineering plans, affected-road and property schedules, local objections and the 1935 decision record. Separate proposed acquisition from any taking actually completed.
Honeoye appears in the waterworks record as a project to be built, not simply a lake to tap. Edwin A. Fisher’s 1932 paper reproduces Rochester council action from April 26, 1927 and follows it through conditional state approval that December. History and Engineering of Rochester’s Water Supply in Its First Century.
The paper then reproduces a June 22, 1928 approval with conditions. They included filtering water from the proposed reservoir and moving affected highways before impounding water. These were requirements written into a project approval; their appearance on the page is not evidence that the reservoir was constructed. History and Engineering of Rochester’s Water Supply in Its First Century.
The Honeoye Lake Watershed Task Force’s later account gives the story its wider span: an announcement in July 1926 and a decision to turn to Lake Ontario in 1935. Its compact narrative does not separate all the earlier approval stages. Fisher’s paper lets us keep those stages visible without treating a later summary as the full docket. History of Honeoye Lake; History and Engineering of Rochester’s Water Supply in Its First Century.
Sources
- History and Engineering of Rochester’s Water Supply in Its First Century — Edwin A. Fisher; March 1932. Locator: Printed pages 90–93 / PDF pages 24–25: Action by the City on the Honeoye Valley Water Project; Petition; Application Granted; listed conditions. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- History of Honeoye Lake — Honeoye Lake Watershed Task Force; Not stated. Locator: The Human History of Honeoye Lake, paragraph beginning On July 17, 1926 through the stated 1935 choice of Lake Ontario. Accessed October 22, 2026.