Editing Selden, New York (section)

===Twentieth century and growth===
[[File:Roe house-from Diary of Captain Roe published in 1904.jpg|thumb|250px|right|The Selden home of Daniel Roe, From The Diary of Captain Daniel Roe, 1806–1808 (1904)]]
In 1916, the Suffolk County Tuberculosis Sanatorium opened on land then considered to be part of [[Holtsville, New York|Holtsville]]. The location, including some of its original buildings, became in 1961 the main (Ammerman) campus of [[Suffolk County Community College]], which today has an enrollment of over 11,000 students.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.northshoreoflongisland.com/Articles-i-2006-10-26-60381.112114_SCC_site_was_once_a_verdant_sanatorium.html |title=SCC site was once a verdant sanatorium |newspaper=[[The Times Beacon Record]] |date=Oct 27, 2006 |access-date=2009-06-17 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716181910/http://www.northshoreoflongisland.com/Articles-i-2006-10-26-60381.112114_SCC_site_was_once_a_verdant_sanatorium.html |archive-date=2014-07-16}}</ref>

From 1919 to 1959, [[Telescope Hill]] on the south side of Selden was the location of a fire lookout tower. During World War II, a German [[U-boat]] spotted from Telescope Hill was later captured<ref name="laskey">Paul Laskey, ''The Fire Observation Towers of New York State'', p.12 (2003) ({{ISBN|978-0974620404}}) ("This proved true when on Long Island a tower observer on Telescope Hill spotted an enemy sub which was apprehended.")</ref> but not identified.

In 1935, a new public school building was built near the same location as the prior school building, near the intersection of [[Bicycle Path, Long Island|Bicycle Path]] and [[New York State Route 25|Middle Country Road]]. That building was renovated in the 1980s and became a branch of the Middle Country Public Library.<ref name="Overton1993">{{cite web |title=David Overton, Brookhaven Town Historian on Selden 1993 |url=http://www.sachemlibrary.org/media/overton/Selden.mp3 |website=sachemlibrary.org |publisher=[[WNYG|WLIM]] |access-date=March 7, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005204113/http://www.sachemlibrary.org/media/overton/Selden.mp3 |archive-date=October 5, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Overton1994" />

The main thoroughfare, Middle Country Road, was paved from [[Smithtown (CDP), New York|Smithtown]] and through Selden to [[Coram, New York|Coram]] around 1927–1928. The rural nature of Selden soon began to change, when in 1931 (when it had around 131 residents <ref name="Overton1993" />), real estate agents began marketing small lots to New York City residents as retreats from urban living, in a development called "Nature's Gardens".<ref name="newsdayselden" /> This was located on the south side of Middle Country Road and Evergreen Drive. Suburban development increased in earnest in the early 1950s, and by the early 1970s Selden had become a primarily suburban community.