Editing Wyandanch, New York (section)

==Agriculture and industry==
The early history of Wyandanch was mainly agricultural. There was a large peach industry, but in 1854, [[Magicicada|seventeen-year locusts]] so devastated the peach trees "that cultivation on any extensive scale has not been attempted since."<ref>"Peach Culture on Long Island", ''Brooklyn Eagle'', November 3, 1885:25.</ref>

Water from the Colonial Spring in West Deer Park (now Wheatley Heights) was bottled in small blue embossed "West Deer Park" water bottles by the Colonial Springs Mineral Company between 1845 and 1854. The bottlers claimed it had "special medicinal properties." When Dr. George Hopkins of [[Brooklyn]] ran the Colonial Springs bottling works, "A bottling house was built and the springs were welled in with enameled brick and covered with glass tops."<ref>"Random Thoughts," ''South Side Signal'', April 4, 1919:2; George Wm Fisher and Donald H. Weinhart, ''A Historical Guide to Long Island Soda, Beer & Mineral Water Bottles & Bottling Companies: 1840–1970''. Nassau-Suffolk-Brooklyn-Queens, Long Island Antique Bottle Association, 1999. The Pennypacker Collection at the East Hampton Public Library holds several documents on water bottling in West Deer Park.</ref>

Millions of building [[brick]]s were molded and baked at the Walker & Conklin and W.H. and F.A. Barlett brickyards using the [[Cretaceous]] clay and fine sand found in the area. The bricks were shipped out by railroad using a LIRR spur which ran along what is now North 23rd Street. In October 1888 the Wyandanch Brick and Terra Cotta Corp. was organized on the site of the abandoned Walker and Conklin brickyard to produce solid and hollow building bricks. In 1893, the plant was destroyed by a forest fire.<ref>New York State Museum: 48th Annual Report to the Regents: 1894, Albany, N.Y.: University of the State of New York, 1895: 218–220; Verne Dyson, ''Deer Park Wyandanch History'', 1957, 91–105; Roy Douglas, "Pine Barrens Pioneers," ''Long Island Forum'', November 1982: 218–222</ref>

The Conservative Gas Corporation established a [[propane]] bottling business in Wyandanch in 1929. Today it operates as [[Amerigas]] Propane LP. In 1947, Joseph F. Walsh established a paper box factory in Wyandanch, and Ignatius Davidson and Mortimer Cumberbach expanded their C & D Cement Block factory, making it the largest African-American-owned business in Suffolk County. [[Fairchild Industries|Fairchild]] Guided Missiles established a large factory in Wyandanch in 1951–1952 and built the Lark anti-aircraft missile and the Petral anti-sub and ship missile for the U.S. Navy. Fairchild Stratos left Wyandanch in 1963 and was replaced by [[Grumman]] Aircraft, which fabricated custom-built [[fiberglass]] and [[Plexiglas]] sections and [[nacelle]]s for U.S. Navy aircraft. Grumman left the community in 1977. Max Staller built the first supermarket and shopping center in Wyandanch in 1955. All these businesses were located near the Long Island Rail Road track in Wyandanch. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, light industrial factories were established in Wyandanch in the northern section of the Pinelawn Industrial Park in southwest Wyandanch and on the east side of Straight Path between two African-American housing estates.<ref>Dyson, 118–119; "Paper Firm  Buys Long Island Site," ''New York Times'', October 5, 1947:R3;</ref><ref>"Start This Month on New Fairchild Plant," ''Newsday'', March 2, 1951: 51;</ref><ref>Grumman archives, Bethpage, NY; "Lunn Laminates Moving to Town," ''Babylon Town Leader'', November 23, 1961.</ref>