Medford, NY real estate market

Medford started with a train stop. The Long Island Rail Road put in the Medford station back in 1843, out in flat wilderness in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens, and it linked up with the old Patchogue Stage Road running between Patchogue and Port Jefferson. A post office followed. In 1907 the LIRR tried something odd here, an 80 acre experimental farm they called Medford Prosperity Farm, meant to prove crops could grow in the Pine Barrens. Theodore Roosevelt came out to see it in August 1910, and the story goes his car got stuck in the mud on the trail toward Wading River and he had to jump for it.

The hamlet filled in slowly, then fast. Eagle Estates went up along Horse Block Road east of Route 112 in 1963, though the plans for it dated back to the 1930s. That development came with its own Blue Jay Market shopping center and a ballfield for local kids between Wave and Race avenues. The Pines followed in the 1970s, laid out east of Buffalo Avenue and south of Jamaica Avenue. The Long Island Expressway cut through town in 1970 with interchanges at Route 112 and Horseblock Road, though the Horseblock interchange itself was not finished until 1999. So this is a town built in waves, farm experiment, postwar development, highway access, each one leaving its own street pattern behind.

Medford sits in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, which is where your tax bill and town services trace back to. The hamlet covers 10.8 square miles, all land, and roads like Horseblock Road, Route 112, Sills Road and the LIRR line still carry the traffic today, with Suffolk County Transit's route 55 bus running from the Patchogue LIRR station up to Port Jefferson. One thing worth knowing before you buy or sell here: Medford station has run continuously since the hamlet began, so if commuting off the island by rail matters to you, this is one of the original stops, not a later add on.