[5] In 1666 Jeremias van Rensselaer, the fourth patroon, established several barns and mills along the kill on what is now Tivoli Street.

[6][8] In 1844 the railroad between Albany and Schenectady east of Fuller Road was moved north from the central part of the city to the Tivoli Hollow Line which ran across the northern border of the city along Patroon Creek and through West Albany.

In 1875, the Hudson River began to be used as the primary source of water, with the various reservoirs on the Patroon Creek as back-up.

Several former customers of the plant including National Grid, Eveready, and Union Carbide put up over $4 million for the clean-up being supervised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The factory was closed in 1983 after it was found that its six smokestacks were contaminating the suburban neighborhood of Roessleville with uranium dust.

[16] Mercury has also been found in the creek downstream from the Superfund site and is being investigated by local college professors.

In 2000 several office buildings around Everett Road were found to still be dumping into the Patroon Creek and the pipes were corked and the properties connected to the municipal sewer system.

[19] In 1993 the creek was declared one of the state's ten worst polluted streams, with no significant living thing found except tube worms.

[22] The Patroon Creek is 6.2 miles (10.0 km) long from a grate at the eastern end of Rensselaer Lake to a culvert that empties into the Hudson River.