The streets bordering the courtReturn to Topical Industry Page
There never was a demand for rapid growth. A glance in Caldwell's Atlas of 1876 shows most of the homes contained within the original town plan, with scattered houses in the outlets. Bridgewater and Sharon were incorporated as a separate community in 1834; Borough Township (Vanport) in 1804, and Brighton Township, then part of South Beaver, in 1816.
In 1864, Frederick Walter began a small bakery business at Insurance and Turnpike, and by 1902 it was the aiant Keystone Bakery of Bridgewater. The most popular business in Beaver was Swesey's Ice Cream Company, which made ice cream from 1876 to 1926, peddling it from a wagon all over the lower valley. The price was two scoops for five cents, a choice of flavors, served in a wooden dish from which one broke off a piece to use as a spoon. Sleigh bells signaled the approach of this delightful visitor.
In World War 1, military hardware in the form of castings for 75 MM shells was manufactured in Beaver in the buildings on Fifth Street near Commerce Street.
Beaver itself never encouraged manufacturing, although there was a flurry of interest in the late 1890s when it was rumored that the Pressed Steel Car Company was going to locate in the southwest section. This resulted in a brisk sale of lots on which houses would not be built for decades.
The streets bordering the court
house have always been ringed
with quaint, tiny offices such
as this one, still in use on
Commerce Street.
The Quay-Anderson house on College Avenue, designated in 1975
by the National Park Service as a landmark site in the National Register
of Historic Places. This was the last home of Matthew Stanley Quay, and
it was here that he entertained many national and foreign dignitaries, and
where the decisions on Republican presidential candidates of the late1800's
were concluded. Now in use as a residence and funeral home.