A couple of years back Arcadia Publishing asked Corning-Painted Post Historical Society about doing a photo-history book on Erwin, and Sheri Golder suggested that I take the project on. I thought it sounded like fun, but we all agreed that the 1972 Flood book had to come first, because of the anniversary. Once that was done, I turned my thoughts to the Erwin book.
Right away I realized that for sales purposes if nothing else the title had to be Erwin and Painted Post. Painted Post has a good percentage of the town’s population, and it’s also probably more identifiable to many folks than the Erwin name is.
I had already used C-PPHS archives for the Corning book that I did with Chuck Mitchell and for my 1972 Flood book, so I was somewhat familiar with that collection already. Sheri dug out box after box of photos, and my wife Joyce helped me sort through them, keeping records as I did the scanning. Besides materials at the Patterson Inn Museum, we also went through photos at the Town of Erwin/DL&W Depot Museum, which is operated by C-PPHS.
Besides that, I dug up photos from the Steuben County Historical Society archives in Bath at the Magee House, and from the County Historian’s collection. These included pictures from the historian’s friend, the Liquor Control Board. They photograph everyplace with a liquor license, and eventually many of these make their way into archives.
You’d be impressed how many pictures there are of floods, but not necessarily with identifications – you have to guess a range from the clothes people are wearing. And there are some VERY impressive Ingersoll-Rand photos, including one of pouring steel. There’s something very arresting about these black-and-white photos of gargantuan industrial equipment.
Out in the countryside, there was once a host of dairies. Michael Troy had a very elegant delivery wagon back in 1898, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where he actually carried the stuff. It doesn’t have very much space.
I really enjoyed the old pictures of the countryside and rural roads, and I was glad to be able to dig up photos of the C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp, not to mention 1940s shots of Costa’s Field. And, of course, I made sure to have images of Gang Mills and Coopers Plains.
Some pictures I took myself, for instance to document the modern churches. I also got the three Indian monuments, going back to 1824, that precede the current-day statue. They’re all at the Depot Museum, which is remarkable. The first one, a flat-metal piece, earned the artist one cow. Then there’s a nice sequence of putting the current statue into place.
Have you ever thought about how many Erwin folks are in the Steuben County Hall of Fame? Sterling Cole, Ellsworth Cowles, Calvin Smith, E.J. Smith, and Joe Costa have all been honored, and I included photos of them all.
This Saturday (July 26) we’ll be having a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Big Flats. Besides that Erwin and Painted Post is also available at Corning-Painted Post Historical Society’s Patterson Inn Museum, and at Steuben County Historical Society’s Magee House… and at other cool places in the Erwin, Corning, and Painted Post area.

After World War I, our army made lots of experiments with trucks, including this one in Painted Post at Ingersoll-Rand.