While the inns were too close to the city to benefit from stage coach traffic, they were conveniently located for drovers bringing their livestock to the Halifax market.

Country life was now easily accessible; wealthy families built grand summer homes and transient visitors enjoyed staying at the Wayside Inn (formerly the Five Mile House) and other tourist accommodations in Rockingham.

[4] The Four Mile House district was selected by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul in the early 1870s for a convent and institution of higher learning.

Mount Saint Vincent was built up the hill on a large parcel of land almost directly opposite the Nova Scotia Railway station.

In 1873, the convent, along with its women's finishing school, Mount Saint Vincent Academy and associated residence facilities opened after approximately one year of construction.

The community of Rockingham Station began to experience some subdivision of land as it was located in a cheaper tax jurisdiction (the Municipality of the County of Halifax) as opposed to the adjacent city which ended at Fairview.

On 1 January 1969, the community of Rockingham--as well as Prince's Lodge, Armdale, Clayton Park, Fairview, and Spryfield--were annexed into the City of Halifax.

The opening of the A. Murray MacKay Bridge in 1970 led to improved connections between Rockingham to the City of Dartmouth and particularly a new industrial park named Burnside which would become a major regional employer.

New residential developments in the expanding city were subsequently built near Rockingham; such as the Clayton Park subdivision, located along the eastern slope of Geizer's Hill.

Preceding and following amalgamation, subdivision development in the western part of Rockingham continued apace, spurred in particular by the opening of Dunbrack Street and Northwest Arm Drive, however the most significant period of recent growth in Rockingham occurred between 1997-and-2003 with the Clayton Park West subdivision which was a 20-year development that filled within a quarter of the budgeted timeframe.