Scrantoms ghost sign
Posted by: 
sagefemme
N 43° 09.500 W 077° 36.229
18T E 288307 N 4781688
Scrantoms was a Rochester based publisher and stationary/book store dating back to... I remember visiting this store on East Main Street more than a decade ago before it went out of business. This painted sign points to what was the back door.
Waymark Code: WMDR0H
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 02/17/2012
Views: 3
Longtime Rochesterians will remember Scrantoms. It pre-dates Office Max, Office Depot, and Staples. Less well remembered was their publishing branch. The store at 334 East Main Street closed its doors in the early- or mid- 1980s to a smaller location, but that was really their last gasp before closing altogether. I remember both locations, so of all the ghost signs I've come across, this is the only one that truly means anything to me.
The Scrantom name is one of the oldest in Rochester, dating back 1811. It is the fifth name ever mentioned in Rochesterville timelines, behind Colonel Natanial Rochester, Colonel William Fitzhugh, Major Charles Carroll and Henry Skinner ("Skinner buys lot Number one, on the present site of the Powers Building... sells the lot to Hamlet Scrantom"). (
visit link)
My research hasn't pointed me to precisely when the store opened at the East Main Street location, but the oldest date listed in the Monroe County Library Trade Catalog Inventory is 1930. (
visit link) There is evidence that the publishing business existance prior to that, however, as a postcard copyrighted 1927 Scrantom's Incorporated #21842 , and postmarked July 30, 1927 East Ave Station, Rochester, NY is recorded on an auction website (
visit link)