 Population
(2004) 1,339,641
Even before the Civil War, noted editor
William C. Bryant established his country estate, Cedarmere, in Roslyn. In 1899,
telegraph company magnate Clarence Mackay erected his 650-acre Harborhill complex,
also in Roslyn. In 1885, Theodore Roosevelt built Sagamore Hill at Oyster Bay.
Roosevelt reveled in Nassau County life, writing, "There could be no healthier
place to bring children up." Hundreds of thousands of other Nassau residents
have agreed for the better part of a century.
The economic impact of
the estate construction and real estate development of south shore railroad villages
began to create a unique suburban county, its growth straining the old rural government
system in the 1930's. County voters approved a new modernized charter, to take
effect on January 1, 1938, the first of its type in New York, to establish a County
Executive directing departments to administer county government with a Board of
Supervisors remaining as a purely legislative body.
As commuter villages
grew, the drone of engines from above shattered the peace and quiet of the Hempstead
Plains. Early aviators soared overhead, testing their craft above this tremendous,
flat, open prairie. Spectators thronged to two nationally significant airstrips:
Roosevelt Field, a center of civilian aviation, and nearby Mitchel Field, a major
army air base.
The aviation industry mushroomed in Nassau County during
World War II. America's most famous warplanes, vital to victory, were manufactured
at the Grumman and Republic factories. There production continued as a major part
of the county's economic base during the post war years, climaxed during the 1960's
when the technicians at Grumman built the Lunar Module which successfully landed
on the moon in July 1969.
When the guns of World War II fell silent,
the boys came home and another wave of settlers transformed Nassau County. An
advertisement in Newsday on May 7th, 1947, offered 2,000 homes for $60 a month
in a new development built on the open Hempstead plains. By the end of the month,
more than 6,500 veterans had filed applications for the new housing units of Levittown.
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