New York State Route 221 - History

History

The state of New York assumed maintenance of two highways linking the hamlets of Harford and Harford Mills—one directly connecting the two and a second, more circuitous route to the east—in the early 20th century. The direct route and most of the loop road were improved to state highway standards as part of a project contracted out on October 16, 1914, and were added to the state highway system on December 10, 1915, as State Highway 1075 (SH 1075). Each end of SH 1075 connected to the segment of the loop route between modern NY 38 and Owego Hill Road, which was rebuilt as part of an earlier project awarded on September 19, 1906, and included in the state highway system on July 5, 1908, as SH 379. Both designations are unsigned and used only for inventory purposes.

In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, the south half of the loop road became part of NY 221, a new route extending from NY 38 at Harford Mills to US 11 in the village of Marathon. NY 221 was extended east to its current eastern terminus in Willet by the following year. The portion of the route between the Harford loop road and Willet utilized a highway added to the state highway system sometime after 1926. NY 221 was rerouted to follow its current alignment to the hamlet of Harford in the mid-1930s, and its former routing to Harford Mills was redesignated as NY 200 in the 1940s.