(OUTDATED) The Town of Rhodes (Beacon Scouts)

History:

   Rhodes is a New York town next to Cayuga Lake. It was founded as a fur trading post and was officially incorporated in the early 1800s. The population at the last census was 2907. There are several much larger towns in the area as well. The land is generally hilly and the town is pretty much surrounded by forest on the sides that are not facing the lake. The forests are made up of both evergreen trees and deciduous trees. The climate, being upstate New York, is temperate, but very cold in winter. There are also many rainy or snowy days throughout the year, but the summer tends to be pretty nice. The population is known for its Bohemian bent, especially during the summer.

   Rhodes has gone through several boom periods. In the mid 1800s there was a small boom with many people moving out of growing cities to look for smaller places to live. The second began in the early 1920s with Rhodes’ first attempt to become a vacation/tourist town. The Clutch Plague brought the idea to a premature end. The idea was attempted again with more success in the late 1940s and 1950s. There was a smaller boom in the late 80s and early 90s with several businesses setting up and older businesses getting a series of improvements. A small development was also built. This last boom turned out to be a very good for Rhodes, as it made sure that the last recession did not hurt it as much as it hurt many vacation/tourist towns. The town was stagnant for a time, but with the economy recovering, people have started moving in.

Demographics:

   Rhodes has a surprisingly diverse population for a small upstate New York town. This is due to several migrations and having taken foreign refugees at several points in its history, mostly to brag about that fact on brochures. Economically, the town has many different income levels, with most people being lower to mid middle class, with some working class and upper class families.

   The town is 90% white which may not seem diverse, but compared to other towns in the area it is. The rest of the population is largely Hispanic, or from southeast Asia or the Middle East. This is due to the large number of refugees mentioned above which turned Rhodes into a bit of a destination for people from that part of the world. The town also has a small African American population, and very few people of East Asian, Pacific Islander, or Native American descent.

Climate:

   Rhodes sees more  precipitation than the already precipitation heavy places around it. It averages 45 inches of rain per year. Rhodes has about 160 sunny days per year on average. During winter it receives about 99 inches of snow on average. This means snow days are rare, as the town is well equipped to deal with snow. On the brighter side, Rhodes has cooler, but still very pleasant summers than most of upstate New York. It is also a windy town, being right next to a lake. Outside of the summer there are few pleasant days in Rhodes. The summer is known for being surprisingly dry and not as humid as one would expect. One meteorologist who studies this phenomenon came up with the following explanation: Rhodes is cursed or blessed.

Buildings and Business:

   There are three schools in town. Cleary Elementary School and Blume Junior High School are named after the two main developers from the boom in 50s as they helped finance building the two schools. The schools are large and have been expanded over the years. Notably they share baseball and football fields, which also separate them. The local high school, simply called Rhodes Senior High School, is located in a different part of town, being a few decades older. It was originally a K-8 (with anyone who wanted a high school education going to a nearby boarding school) but with the construction of the two new schools it became the high school. The mascot and colors for the schools are all the same. The mascot is a black and white griffon, and thus the school colors are black and white.

   Most businesses tend to be small mom & pop stores of varying kinds. There are some chains in Rhodes, but they are few and far between, and more likely to be state chains than national ones. Many businesses are open only for the summer. The ones that stay open all year-round tend be the important ones like the hardware store, but some such as the roller skating rink and bowling alley also stay open.

   Houses in Rhodes come in a variety of styles, but can often be divided into several eras. Houses older than the 1920s boom come in a variety of styles and are now mainly found outside of the town proper. Most of the house built during the 20s boom are small Craftsman style and there are some prairie style houses for the more well off. The 1950s boom brought lots of ranch style houses, mostly split ranches and two level ranches, to Rhodes. The 90s boom was a bit of a throwback, and while it mostly focused on businesses, new homes were built, mostly in a Cape Cod Style houses.

The Economy:

    Rhodes is mostly a bedroom community for Ithaca, but is also a small tourist and renting destination in the summer. The main attractions of Rhodes are its scenic landscapes and its beaches. The main beach, Silverstein Beach, is open from late spring to early autumn. It has a community building divided into two sections; the left section of the building has lifeguard offices and the like and the right side has changing rooms. While the beach is not open for swimming during the off season (and given the water’s temperature, few would want to) many teens sneak in a swim at night on a dare or the like. Businesses range from the ordinary like a hardware stores, to tourist based ones such as a motel, to the bizarre such as a new age shop. There are some chains, both state and national, but not many. The largest employers tend to be outside of Rhodes in one of the surrounding towns. Rhodes has several churches, a synagogue, and a mosque. It has the typical services of a town, local police and fire department, a volunteer ambulance corps, post office, public library, etc.

   One of the biggest businesses in Rhodes (and arguable the reason it's on the map) is the renting business. Many houses are rented out to families during the summer, usually from one to three weeks. This means that the town is much more active during the pleasant summer months, and much more empty during the harsher autumn, winter, and spring. Many of the renters are from Syracuse or Rochester, looking to get away from the city for a couple of weeks. Local attitudes to renters are mixed. Locals understand that the renters are vital to the economy, but can’t helped be annoyed by them. Local kids enjoy them though, as they get new friends to play with during the slow summer months.

Other Interesting Facts:

   One of the strangest features of Rhodes is the high number of cemeteries. As one state official said while touring the town during the 1990s boom, “How does a town of this size have so many [expletive deleted] graveyards?!” The short answer is poor city planning. The long answer is that each church has a small cemetery as well as the synagogue and the mosque. There is also a town cemetery. The Stine family also had a private cemetery where family members were buried along with a few close servants.

   Rhodes is known (at least among the locals) for its... unique wildlife. Animals in Rhodes tend to be not only not very afraid of humans, but outright aggressive. Some just put up a display, but others are different. Crazed animals are referred to as “Beasts of Rhodes”. They are extremely dangerous, and a few have to put down each year by the police department.

   Strangely, for a small town there have not been many prominent families within the town throughout its history. The one big exception is the Stine family. The Stine family was in Rhodes since almost its founding, and they quickly became its richest residents. They built a small mansion on a hill overlooking the town. It passed down through the family until the 1950s when Norman Stine inherited it. Norman never married, and when he died he bequeathed the mansion and the land to the town to turn into a museum. The Stine mansion is now the Rhodes history museum, employing one curator, and having a staff of volunteers. It is a popular destination for tourists looking to immerse themselves in the town’s history.