New York State Route 243 - History

History

The origins of NY 243 date back to the early 1910s when the state of New York improved the portion between the hamlet of Rushford and Rushford Lake to state highway standards. A contract for the project was awarded on April 5, 1910, and the rebuilt road was added to the state highway system on February 13, 1913, as unsigned State Highway 801 (SH 801). The section between Rushford Lake and the hamlet of Caneadea was reconstructed under a contract let on June 12, 1922. Work on the road was completed by 1926, and the highway became state-maintained as SH 1606. The remainder of the modern route northwest of Rushford was added in the mid-1920s. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, hundreds of state-owned roads were given posted route numbers for the first time. NY 243 was assigned at this time, extending from Farmersville to Caneadea over SH 801, SH 1606, and the Farmersville–Rushford state highway.

NY 243 has been realigned in two locations since it was assigned. In the town of Rushford, the highway was originally routed through the hamlet of Rushford, using Buffalo and Main streets and the southern half of Upper Street to traverse the community. Plans for a bypass of Rushford were drawn up by the state as early as 1961, when the realignment was proposed as part of a larger effort to improve all of NY 243 between the hamlets of Rushford and Caneadea. The project would also lessen the number of curves and eliminate high grades along the highway. It was completed sometime between 1963 and 1976. During the same period, NY 98 was reconfigured near the west end of NY 243 to intersect the latter at a new junction in Freedom, located just northeast of their original intersection in Farmersville. NY 243 was truncated to end at the new junction while the route's former routing into Farmersville became part of NY 98.