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A major resource in the area were the nearby inexhaustible sand quarries, which attracted attention abroad, and also became a source of
considerable wealth to the business interest of the village.
It was the men who dug the canal, along with the farmers drilling wells and plowing fields who discovered the sandstone which was quarried and shipped all over the country. Because the sandstone was so near the surface, it was easy to mine. Quarries sprang up all along the canal and for about eighty years supported an industry that made the name Medina sandstone known in many lands.
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Medina sandstone can be found in the steps of the State Capital in Albany, in the streets of Rochester, Chicago, St. Louis and even
as far as Havana Cuba; the sandstone was also used in the construction of Buckingham Palace. And most importantly, everywhere in Medina you can see the stone that made its name famous, from City Hall to the sills of
the business district. Arch Merrill, a Rochester journalist once said “Medina, child of the Clinton Ditch, is a house founded upon rock”.
Toward the end of the nineteenth many immigrants, stone
masons, cutters, and artisans, such as the Italians came to Medina to worth quarries, leaving a permanent imprint on the village.
-text courtesy Kara Hartway
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