Did You Know That

in 1896 you could rent a six room house near the Reading Railroad for nine dollars a month or buy it outright for eight hundred bucks?

if you preferred to live away from the railroad tracks then you could rent a house for twelve dollars a month or buy it for twelve hundred bucks.

two years later in 1898 a house in wissahickon on kalos street would cost you around thirteen dollars a month to rent.

if you preferred to live on a street such as umbria or st. david's then you would pay ten bucks a month.

did you know that in the year 1900, it cost twenty-five dollars for a piano and fifteen dollars for a solid oak bedroom set?

take a steamer to riverside, strawberry mansion, belmont hills and the zoo and pay fifteen cents round trip.

a burial plot in west laurel hill or westminster cemetery would cost you about twenty dollars. that is only five dollars less than what my great grandmother paid for a plot at st. john the baptist church ground for her brother in 1947. however, she was given it for half off its original price of fifty dollars because she was an active member in the church.

and in 1900 there were fourteen trains that ran to west laurel hill and westminster cemeteries from manayunk daily.

did you know that in the year 1880, the main occupation for those living in west manayunk/belmont hills/lower merion township was farming?

and that after world war II, most farms ceased to exist in these areas?

agriculture-industry-retail, all in that order were the largest occupations in between the years 1880 to 2007.

what type of local businesses were there in 1880?

there were fourteen general stores, nine hotels, three drug stores and flour & feed stores, two dry goods, confectioneries, restaurants, lumber and coal yards, and finally one grocery, stove and provision shop.