top of page

The 20th Century

New innovations came to the town and village after 1900. The first automobile was brought to the village by George Banfield in 1906, though it was not until 1915 that the first paved road was laid down. It stretched from Erin to the outer edge of the village. The first telephone was installed around 1907 and electric lights came in 1915. After World War I, immigrants, mainly from Finland, arrived and developed large poultry farms, leading to the opening of several large feed mills in the area. The population of Van Etten in 1900 was around 1,400. That number dropped to about 1,000 in 1930 but rose to over 1,500 by the end of the century.

bottom of page