Paramus is often referred to as "the Crossroads of Bergen County " because it is crisscrossed by Route 4, Route 17, and the Garden State Parkway. However, its history is more in-depth than this, and below is a small blurb on the creation of Paramus as a town.
At the turn of the century , there was no town or borough specifically called "Paramus". There was only Midland Township, which had been formed in 1871, but which had rapidly dwindled in size and population as sections of it broke away to establish their own towns. At this point, only Paramus and Rochelle Park remained.
By the 1920's, Rochelle Park was becoming a settled suburb, bordering, as it did, the more metropolitan Hackensack. Paramus, however, was still a rural area with some 1600 residents, in 1922.
Schools were the issue that broke up Midland Township and caused Paramus to separate from Rochelle Park. Residents in Rochelle Park wanted to consolidate the schools into one big school in Rochelle Park. That would have meant a lengthy commute for Paramus students.
Residents of Rochelle Park, on the other hand, gave another reason for the separation. They blamed a proposal to install lights on the streets of Rochelle Park, toward which the Paramus farmers did not wish to pay taxes, for the disagreement.
This blurb was brought to you by the "... 7th grade enrichment students at
East Brook, who put together a web site on the history of Paramus. Fritz Behnke was instrumental in providing us with much of the source material. Years ago most of his collection was photographed and converted to digital format by a group of high school students. We took those photos and sorted, categorized, identified and labeled them, and then used many of them in creating the web site."
