Ramsey ramble

This afternoon, I went to the bike path in nearby Ramsey (I seem to go to this town every other day anyway) to look for the B & O RR geocache. It was a short walk from a dead-end road in the neighborhood and I found the cache right away in the first spot I thought of checking. A historical note on the cache page prompted me to look up the town's history. It had slipped my mind that the town's centennial was a few days ago, so it was a good time to review this history page on the town's centennial website.

Ramsey was named after the Ramsey family who owned land in the area some 200 years ago. In the mid-19th century, the area was known for its strawberries. In 1851, one million baskets of strawberries (roughly 24 berries per basket) were shipped to New York City by rail. (At the same time, the neighboring town of Saddle River became the basketmaking center of the US because they needed all those baskets to put the strawberries in!) Back in the 1850s, strawberries sold for 2 to 5 cents per basket. I checked the A&P this evening and strawberries were anywhere from $2 to $5 per container, depending on berry size and brand name, so let's assume a factor of 100. Thus, the annualized price increase over 150 years is: 100^(1/150) = 1.031, or a 3.1% long-term rate of inflation.

Of course, the berry patches have long since been built over for housing.

( Friday Five )