In the late 1830s: German and Irish immigrants George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry formed the Mount Hope Nursery, while Charles and George Crosman formed the Crosman Seed Company. Mount Hope Nursery would become the world leader in seeds and plants for decades, eventually providing the land for Highland Park and the Ellwanger-Barry neighborhood. Crosman Seed Company was a prominent seed dispensary known for vibrantly illustrated catalogs and advertisements, stilling doing business to this day. In the late 1800s, CJ Brown started the Brown Brothers Continental Nursery, and James Vick started his Vick’s Seeds catalog. The Brown brothers eventually developed the lands of their nursery into present day Browncroft neighborhood, and James Vick developed most of his nursery and land into part of the present day Park Avenue neighborhood (Vick Park A and B are named for him).  Successful businesspeople like these men diversified Rochester’s worldwide reputation with yet another industry, and provided us with our second most popular nickname: The Flower City.

The nickname is probably Rochester’s most well known, as it shares space with its “twin“ as dual inspiration for the city’s official logo. As the most well known, it’s only fitting that we give it the neon treatment.