Monthly Archives: June 2021

What We Owe to the C.C.C.

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Two weeks ago in this space we looked at the C.C.C., or Civilian Conservation Corps, and what it did locally during the New Deal of 1933 to 1942. C.C.C. was a one-year employment program for young men (or in some cases, Great War veterans), focusing on outdoor work. Watkins Glen, Allegany, Stony Brook, Buttermilk, Taughannock, and Robert Treman State Parks all owe a great deal of their infrastructure to the C.C.C., and they did some of the earliest work to create Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.
Besides that, they were called into service after the catastrophic 1935 flood killed 44 people. That flood flowed in part from poor land use practices – a problem the state geologist had warned about well before the Civil War. The U.S. Soil Service made the upper Conhocton River, especially the Avoca area, a showcase soil conservation project. Part of this included reforestation, and C.C.C. lads created many tree plantations, including one in the shape of a giant “A” that overlooked Avoca for many years. (It was partly removed when the Southern Tier Expressway came in.) A drainage ditch in Howard, near Buena Vista, is probably C.C.C. Work.
The C.C.C. men put in roads, drainage, and stone buildings for Chenango Valley State Park… not to mention a nine-hole golf course. C.C.C. crews working in Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville included a company of veterans from the SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR!
Since much of the New Deal was created “on the run,” the C.C.C. was put under charge of the only government agency used to dealing with large numbers of young men – the army.
But these were VERY LARGE numbers in the Triple-Cees. Military men like Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower learned how to work with that – a skill that would be vital in the World War II years of 1940-45.
They also learned to work with men who expected to be treated as citizens, rather than as recruits to be abused and screamed at.
The generation that grew up in the Depression largely missed out on medical care, dental care, and proper diet. In the Triple-Cees they ate well, some for the first time in their lives. They got their teeth fixed. They got their vaccinations. They got care for treatable conditions. Over a fifth of World War II recruits washed out medically. Without C.C.C., it would have been far higher.
Young men learned skills (such as construction) that made them employable in the civilian world AND vital in the military. Those who didn’t have diplomas were given courses, and finished high school. Those who were illiterate (a startling percentage) were taught to read – all of which would strengthen the World War II army, and our postwar civilian economy.
President Roosevelt fiercely decreed that the program would have no hint of militarization, and wouldn’t even offer R.O.T.C. – he didn’t want anything even vaguely like the Hitler Youth.
Even so, participants experienced some very basic military features – uniforms, camps, barracks, K.P. When they went into the service in our huge buildup, these men already had a speaking acquaintance with the military way of doing things. It eased their transition, AND the army called on them as leaders for the younger rookies.
Actors Raymond Burr, Robert Mitchum, and Walter Matthau were C.C.C “graduates.” So was Archie Moore, future Light Heavyweight Boxing World Champion. Baseball great Stan Musial was in the C.C.C. Chuck Yeager, World War II fighter ace and first man to break the sound barrier, did his term in the C.C.C. So all in all, we owe a great debt of thanks to the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Hurricane Agnes: 72 + 50

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In June of 1972, a horrendous flood pulverized our area, when remnants of Hurricane Agnes stalled overhead and poured out torrents.

In Allegany County, just over the line with Steuben, a father and daughter were swept away and lost. Outside Bath, another man was carried off. A Gang Mills firefighter died, looking for the Bath man. Before long another SEVENTEEN were dead in the Gang Mills-Painted Post-Riverside-Corning City-South Corning crescent.

A day or two afterward, three men surveying damage for the Army Corps of Engineers were killed in Hornell, when their helicopter struck utility lines.

The Canisteo, Conhocton, Tuscarora and Tioga all crested at about the same time, just where they were joining (in Painted Post) to form the Chemung. Young Tommy Hilfiger, watching from Harris Hill, saw the wall of water roll down the riverbed, and rushed back to Elmira to save the stock in his store.

This was America’s most expensive hurricane to that date. The Painted Post Methodist and Presbyterian Churches were condemned, and replaced by one United Church. Whole blocks were condemned nearby, replaced by a new shopping center. Much of the east Market Street area in Corning had to go. The Corning and Elmira library buildings survived, and so did Corning city hall, but the institutions all moved to new construction.

Corning and St. Joseph hospitals survived. St. Joseph’s sent its patients to Arnot, which pushed its “walking wounded” out and told them to make their own way home… often on foot. Corning Hospital, knee-deep in frigid muddy water, shipped their patients to the hospital in Montour Falls, stretched out in the back decks of station wagons driven by community volunteers. The Penn Central railroad bridge in Corning crashed into the Chemung, taking a line of fully-loaded coal cars with it. Railroads across the northeast went broke.

Houses and businesses were washed away, and some never found. Thousands of cars were under water, and though many of them were put back into useable condition, none of them ever worked quite right again.

Keuka, Lamoka, and Waneta Lakes all burst their banks. Parts of Bath and Penn Yan flooded, as did some or all of many other towns. Owego, Binghamton, and Wellsville were all badly hit. Corning Museum of Glass flooded, and so did Corning Glass Works, and most of “the flat” in Corning, and lots of Horseheads, and most of Elmira. Two radio stations cobbled together resources to get one transmitter on the air. The Corning Leader and Elmira Star-Gazette cranked out joint daily issues on a mimeograph.

People lost precious family treasures, and much disappeared from the records. A few years ago, at Steuben County Historical Society, we were called on to help a family find the grave of an infant sister. The funeral home in Horseheads lost all its records in 1972. Happily, we were able to help.

And then people shoveled out. Glass Museum professionals invented new ways to restore documents and artifacts, and their methods are still used worldwide. Amo Houghton announced that the Glass Works was staying put. Volunteers arrived from across the nation. Visionaries created new plans for downtown Corning, Elmira, and Painted Post. People started dividing time into two epochs: BEFORE the flood, and AFTER the flood.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of “The Flood,” and memories are slipping away. At Steuben County Historical Society we are mounting a “72 + 50” campaign to gather copies of memoirs, diaries, documents, photographs… whatever (other than newspapers, which we already have) tells the tale of the flood as Steuben suffered it. We’re collecting county-wide, OR donate to your local historical society – and if you’re in other counties, reach out to your own societies and agencies there.

It’s often easy to overlook that Hurricane Agnes was a major national (another 100 dead) and international (Mexico and Cuba) disaster. But it’s also OUR story, right here. And we don’t want it to be forgotten.

The C.C.C. Left Its Mark — on Us

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In the midst of the calamitous Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” poured forth new programs designed to put people back to work. One of the most fondly-remembered New Deal programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps.
While some companies (as the local units were called) were reserved for Great War veterans, most C.C.C.’s were older male teens who did a year’s service (usually not in their home states), simultaneously getting training. They were clothed, bedded, boarded, and paid, but most of the money went to their parents, who thus had more income and fewer expenses. In addition to that it removed the boys from the job market for a year, making job-seeking just a little bit easier for the unemployed. Photos show that the local contingents were racially integrated, but that wasn’t the case everywhere. (There was a smaller similar program for women, jokingly called the she-she-she, but I don’t believe it operated in our area.)
The main C.C.C. camp for Steuben County was in Kanona, with a “side camp” at Painted Post and temporary camps when and where useful. (The Kanona facility later became a P.O.W. camp in World War II, and then a seasonal camp for migrant farm workers.)
A company of C.C.C. spent the better part of a year camped near Addison with the idea of putting a dam across the Tuscarora Creek, but it was finally decided that the ground was unsuitable. C.C.C. also built a camp for men coming in to construct the Arkport Dam.
Schuyler County had Triple-C camps in Watkins Glen (later Hidden Valley 4-H camp) and Burdett. Their legacy includes a lot of the work in the state park – buildings, trails, stonework, bridges (including the Sentry Bridge near the entrance to the Gorge Trail), and more.
C.C.C. and W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) also did quite a lot of development in Stony Brook State Park, though with the passage of time it’s hard to tell which group did what. Much of the older park infrastructure, including the two Rim Trails, comes from this period.
In the Ithaca area, according to the Ithaca Journal, C.C.C. fellows were “trucked to work sites in Enfield Glen (later Robert H. Treman), Buttermilk Falls, and Taughannock Falls State Parks. There they excavated flagstone and did masonry work, blasted, excavated fill, graded, planted trees, shrubs and grass, built roads, bridges, and water systems, erected park buildings, and – after the disastrous floods of July 1935 and August 1937 – repaired damaged facilities that in many cases they had only recently completed.” The Gorge Trail at Treman comes from this work.
C.C.C. also completed major development at Allegany State Park near Salamanca. Sections of the Finger Lakes Trail and North Country Trail were originally created by the C.C.C.
Many of the state parks had been designated, if not fully executed, by Robert Moses back in the early 1920s. What we now call Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, in marshes at the north end of Cayuga Lake, got its start in 1937. C.C.C. established a camp at Montezuma and performed much of the earliest work, including creating low dikes to restore the historic marsh area.
And that ain’t all – as we’ll see next week! In addition to all the work manifestly done, C.C.C. played an indirect role in the winning of World War II, and that will also be part of next week’s story.

The COVID: Looking Back a Year

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When this disaster started, I started keeping “The Coronavirus Chronicles” for Steuben County Historical Society – gathering Steuben-specific news and information – not just for our own use, but for researchers fifty years from now. Even though it’s Steuben-specific, of course much of it applies, at least in general terms, to our neighboring counties as well. By the way, using 14-point type this “Chronicle” is now up to 118 pages and counting!

So – looking back 14 months, what was going on right here where we were all making history?

Our very first entry, on March 11, was a first-hand account of new out-patient procedures in place at the Bath V.A. Medical Center.

On the twelfth we noted that Corning Community College had cancelled in-person classes for the rest of the semester, while the Leader had ordered everyone except circulation people to work from home. (They were still home as of the last I heard, last month.)

County Manager Jack Wheeler and County Public Health Director Darlene Smith strongly recommended limiting or cancelling public meetings. They ended County-provided Baby Café and congregate meals in Corning, Bath, and Hornell. They stated that the County was testing for the virus locally, and could send samples to Albany for faster turnaround if needed.

Church closings started as of the 13th, and a long list of school activity cancellations began – Hammondsport school play, Bradford ChillFest, Section V athletic events, and more more more.

Toilet paper was facing a critical shortage! Paper towels and sanitary wipes were also in short supply. Angry Oven Pizza in Bath announced that it would throw in a free roll of toilet paper with every delivery – while supplies lasted.

The Rockwell and Corning Museums closed on the 16th, and County Health closed all schools for a month. Distance learning began, and some districts, including Bath, delivered student lunches and breakfasts for pickup at specified locations. Eventually many districts would adopt at-the-door delivery.

On advice of Southern Tier Library System, all 49 libraries in five counties closed for a month. My wife was picking up her paycheck, so we happened to be in Bath’s Dormann Library when the director announced that that was the last day! She suggested that everyone load up with books and movies, which we did. I also decided to get one last vanilla chai smoothie from the library’s Chapters Café! On the first day the café reopened, 14 months later, I got another one.

Village elections were postponed to coincide with the April 28 primaries.

Arnot Health, including Ira Davenport Hospital, ended all visitation and elective surgery on March 17.

On March 18, the first confirmed case in Steuben County was announced. Non-essential county employees were told to stay at home, and no drop-ins were allowed at county offices. Most banks and similar institutions either closed branches, or opened only for window service. The V.A. Centers in Bath and Canandaigua adopted a no-visitors policy (with some exceptions), limited access in other ways, adopted remote consultations wherever possible, and screened veteran patients more closely.

On March 23 the state ordered most non-essential businesses closed, and Steuben County Historical Society did so. Supermarkets reduced hours, and retailers offered curbside pickup.

The Southern Tier Shopper suspended publication for two weeks.

S.C.H.S. released Sidewalk History Spotting: Walking (or Driving) Tours in Steuben County, to “provide a vehicle for getting some fresh air and exercise (even if socially distanced), besides spotlighting some of our communities and pointing out a little history.”

On March 30, County Health announced a running total of 28 cases, which was a one-third increase in 24 hours. By the next day there were 36 cases, and the first deaths in the region were being announced. Stay tuned… from time to time in future weeks we’ll continue this look into our recent past.