In 1600 the Honeoye Lake Watershed was—apart from clearings made by Native Americans and natural causes such as fire, steep slope landslides, wind or ice—completely forested.

Probably the first product to be transported to market was barrels of potash, made from ashes of the burned trees.

As sawmills were erected, lumber from the trees cut from 1830 to 1890 were used in the construction of urban centers such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse.

Efforts to bring logs down from the inaccessible area between East Lake Road and Gulick led to the construction of a rail line in the bottom of Briggs Gully.

Since 1885, there has been a slow decline of farming in the watershed, accelerated by the Great Depression from 1929 to 1943 and a gradual re-establishment of the area’s forests.

Changes in the character of the Town of Richmond and Honeoye Lake Watershed over the past half century have been significant.

The growth in the use of private automobiles and the construction of good roads in the 1920s and 1930s added to the desirability of Honeoye lakefront cottages.

By the mid-twentieth century, undeveloped lake frontage had mostly disappeared and summer cottages filled the shoreline.

The years after World War II also signaled the end of agriculture as a principal use of the watershed land and the rapid residential development in the hills of Richmond and Canadice overlooking the lake.

After considerable success, the Winter Carnival was discontinued due to lack of tourist infrastructure.