Tag Archives: Finger Lakes

“The Best Of”… In My Humble Opinion

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Our region is packed with wonderful places to enjoy, but where are the BEST of each category? Here’s a subjective, incomplete, and individualistic – but heartfelt! – list of recommendations.

Best Open-Air Museum: Genesee Country Village, in Mumford. 600 acres to stroll, with 68 period houses collected from the region and re-erected as a developing 19th-century village. It includes an octagon house from Friendship; a mansion from Campbell; a country store from Altay; a church from Brooks Grove; a one-room school from Rush; and Nathaniel Rochester’s plank house, from when he was still living in Dansville. (But don’t overlook the Farmer’s Museum, in Cooperstown.)

Best Kids’ Museum: The Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester. Toys, games, playthings, and recreational books – you MUST like at least one of those! (I like ’em all!) I’m not sure how many acres there are under roof, but it’s all dedicated to recreation and play – last time I was there, there was even a Penn Yan Boats fishing boat on exhibit. Strong also has the National Toy Hall of Fame (find your favorites, or make a nomination!), a large dollhouse collection, and a wonderful indoor butterfly garden. Even with all those playthings (many of the hands-on) just a few steps away, what is better than a butterfly?

Best Aviation Museum: The Glenn Curtiss Museum, in Hammondsport. Follow the life of America’s first aviation titan, who made multiple millions within seven years after he and his friends built their first airplane. (The first airplane they ever BUILT, was also the first airplane they ever SAW.) And explore the life of the little home town that rode the roller-coaster with him. Years ago, I was the director here. I think you’d like it.

Best Local History Museum: The Buffalo History Museum, in Buffalo. The museum is historic all by itself, for it’s the only building preserved from the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, or world’s fair. (President McKinley was fatally shot just a few blocks away, and the museum owns the murder weapon.) The museum is fun, but it also doesn’t pull any punches on facing the community’s history of prejudice. One fun little curio – former president Millard Fillmore was one of the founding members of the Buffalo Historical Society, which operates the museum.

Best Place to Lose Yourself in Flowers: Cornell Botanical gardens, in Ithaca. Tiptoe through setpiece flower beds, or ramble among broadcast dame’s rocket.

Most Beautiful Place to Hike: The Finger Lakes Trail section between Steuben County Route 13 (Mitchellsville Road) and State Route 54, outside Hammondsport. Sometimes deer and wild turkey… hepatica and may apple in season… always the woodland, the nearby gorge and stream, the Keuka Inlet, and the lovely vineyard in Pleasant Valley.

Best Gorge: Watkins Glen, in… Watkins Glen! Letchworth and Stony Brook rightfully have their boosters, but you can walk the gorge at Watkins and get wet along the way. The gorge hoots and hollers and sprays, but you meet it, and enjoy it, on a human level.

Best Waterfall, NOT Counting Niagara, Which is in a Class by Itself: Taughannock Falls, near Cayuga Lake, outside Ithaca. A half-mile walk-in, and a single drop longer than Niagara’s, although noplace near as wide. Close second goes to Shequaga Falls, right at the end of West Main Street in Montour Falls.

Best Scenic Overlook: Mossy Bank Park above Bath, and Harris Hill Park near Elmira. Local folks have been enjoying Mossy Bank for 200 years, and I imagine the same is true for Harris Hill. Sailplanes take off and land right near the Harris Hill overlook. This is also the spot from which young Tommy Hilfiger saw the wall of water thundering down the Chemung in 1972, then raced it back to his first shop to save the stock by rushing it to an upper level. Mossy Bank used to be part of the Davenport estate, and girls from the Davenport orphanage loved to hike up there for picnics. You sometimes see eagles nowadays. (More “Bests” to come, from time to time!)

Natural Landmarks of (or Near) the Finger Lakes

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We live in a marvelous region, replete with sights and wonders. I suppose that just about every place is like that, if you dig deep enough. Another time, we’ll look at “man-made” landmarks in the region. But for this week, I wanted to enjoy compiling a list of NATURAL landmarks, in or around our Finger Lakes.

Each of our lakes is a natural landmark. But Keuka stands out. Because of its two northern branches, true – but even more so because of the arresting Bluff right between them. It dominates the main body of the Lake and both Branches, making a sight that dwells for decades in the memory. (It’s even MORE overwhelming if you’re actually IN the Lake, gazing up at it.)

NOT one of the Finger Lakes, but the last of the GREAT Lakes, is Lake Ontario. As a sight, well, it’s not MUCH of a sight. It’s the realization that this is an inland fresh-water sea, part of chain of such seas, joined by mighty rivers, in all spanning thousands of miles, that takes the breath away.

At Sodus on the southern shore of Ontario lies Chimney Bluff State Park, home to ever shifting geological formations, shaped and reshaped by wind, wave, and gravity.

Just a few rods south of the Conhocton River in Bath, a cliff and slope rise sharply for 500 feet. You can admire this from the village, for it looms like a wall as you drive south on Liberty Street (or just about any other street, for that matter).

But this view is especially remarkable because it works both ways. Head on up to Mossy Bank Park, drive or walk down to the Lookout, and the whole village, including Lake Salubria, spreads out below you like a playset. You can’t see Keuka Lake, but you can see the vale that wends toward it through the high hills. You can look westward along the course of I-99 toward Kanona. If the air is clear enough you can spot the wind turbines near Prattsburgh, and the set in Howard. If the season is right, monarch butterflies may rise up from the flat. If the stars are right, bald eagles may pass by.

The gorges of Stony Brook State Park and Watkins Glen State Park are natural landmarks, with the streams that rush through them continuing their millennia-long shaping and reshaping of their glens. The cleft of Letchworth Gorge is staggering to see, as is the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.

We’re blest with many waterfalls, each possessing its own beauty. Montour Falls and Taughannock Falls are two of the best, and it’s fun to stand in their spray on a summer’s day. And talking of falls, how could we omit Niagara? What must that have been like, for the first men and women to see it, ten-thousand years ago or more? First the roar… then the mist… and then a sight which they never could have imagined. And nobody else could either, so reports must have been scorned as travelers’ tales, until so many people had seen it that they had to be believed.

Being from Rhode Island, I long for salt marshes. None nearby, of course. But the Queen Catharine Marsh, between Watkins Glen and Montour Falls, is a huge beautiful flatland, girdled with a foot path created by the Finger Lakes Trail Conference. Harriers, redwings, waterfowl and wading birds abound. If you like marshes – don’t miss it!

We’re From the Finger Lakes — Bet You Didn’t Know!

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An ElderHostel guest at Watson Homestead told me that she had been on the Greek island of Corfu, when a voice behind her said, “Now there’s someone from Rochester, New York.” She turned around, and it was Mitch Miller – oboist, Columbia Records mogul, host of the wildly popular Sing-Along Gang on early 60s TV. When she asked him how he had known, he said, “I recognized the accent.”

In his line, Mitch must have had a superbly-trained ear, and he’d had plenty of time to study the accent. Born in Rochester, he went to East High, then Eastman School of Music, then played with the R.P.O. until lifting his sights to New York City.

So Mitch was a card carrying Finger Laker. Of course we know about such luminaries as Glenn Curtiss, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Susan B. Anthony, but who ELSE hails from the Lakes Country?

*Multimillionaire John D. Rockefeller was born (much poorer) in Richford, outside Owego.

*Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling was born in Syracuse. He then grew up in Binghamton, but summered almost every year of his adult life in Interlaken, and named his company Cayuga Productions.

*Cab Calloway was born in Rochester on the Fourth of July, four years ahead of Christmas baby Mitch Miller. Famed for his scatting vocals, Cab was a renowned big band leader, back in the days when jazz was jingling and swing was king.

*While making his way from Vermont to Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas paused for three years to attend Canandaigua Academy and begin the study of law. He beat out Abe Lincoln for a senate seat in 1858, and two years later was the only presidential candidate (out of four) with strong support in every part of the country. But this time it wasn’t enough to beat Lincoln, or to hold off the Civil War.

*President Millard Fillmore was born in Moravia, and grew up in Cayuga County except for an unhappy apprenticeship in Sparta. President Chester A. Arthur lived for a short spell in York (Livingston County). Curiously, they each became president on the deaths of their predecessors, and did not serve a second term.

*Many an aspiring president started out young by figuring ways to finagle “Robert’s Rules of Order.” General Henry M. Robert married and settled in Owego in 1901, when he retired from the army. He died 22 years later in Hornell.

*Like Mitch Miller and Cab Calloway, Joe Simon was born in Rochester. He went to high school there and then worked as a cartoonist for one of the city newspapers, then moved to Syracuse and did the same there. Moving to New York City at the age of 23, he fell into the brand-new field of comic books. He worked there for decades and had many accomplishments – but most memorably of all, he created Captain America.

*Daniel Shays fought at Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, but never got paid. Broke, indebted, and behind on taxes, he helped create the United States – by leading a rebellion in 1786. It failed, but it scared George Washington and other national leaders so much that they drafted a new constitution to strengthen the federal government and prevent (or crush) insurrections. We’ve been using it ever since. Pardoned, pensioned, unhappy and alcoholic, Shays drifted westward and finished his days in Sparta.

*By the way, Rochester must have had something very beneficial in its water way back when. All born within a six-year period, Cab Calloway lived to be 86, Joe Simon 98, and Mitch Miller 99!

Wild Animals I Have Known… in the Finger Lakes (Part 2!)

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Last month we blogged about interesting wildlife encounters from 27 years of living in the Finger Lakes. One thing I should mention is, that the animals came to me, or at least we blundered upon each other. My point is that much as I love seeing the wildlife, I try very hard not to bother them. Close encounters are nerve-wracking for them, and potentially dangerous for both of us. Social distancing is the way to go!

*That might have been good advice for a red fox I encountered while hiking the Bristol Hills Trail through Hugh Tor, near Naples. At this point the Trail took advantage of an old farm lane, on which we were walking converging courses. He had his head down, schlepping along, until I was about the make my presence known, when all at once he jerked his head up, gaped in astonishment, and lit out for the high timber. I must have interrupted some deep philosophical contemplation.

*Beavers are making a comeback! Forests are up, trapping is down, and stream qualities have been improving. The first good look I ever got at a beaver was in Boughton Park, near Holcomb. He was standing on his hind feet on a log in water, leaning his chest on a branch, and reaching over the branch to strip twigs from the tree, gnawing at them to his heart’s content… he was busy as a beaver. When we first moved to Bath we could watch them from the road near Risingville, and at a farm pond between Wayne and Hammondsport. Like the Lone Ranger, they move on when their job (damming streams) is done. There’s always another stream, just over the next rise.

*I also met some interesting woodchucks near Bath. Right in the village I frequently saw a ‘chuck that was terrified of cats, even though he probably outweighed them two to one. I knew another one that threw up a little parapet for himself, in a slope near Pleasant Valley on State Route 54, and spent his days enjoying the sun and watching the traffic. When we lived on Mitchellsville Road I used to watch a woodchuck from a second-floor window. He was also across the back yard, putting a good amount of distance between us. But as I watched him, he watched me. Just raising my hand would send him scurrying for the safety of his burrow. They must have excellent eyesight.

*I once caught a glimpse of a fisher on the Finger Lakes Trail, west of Mitchellsville. And one night a bobcat scooted across Cold Brook Road in front of our car. It’s been quite recently that either of these predators have moved into our neighborhood in any numbers. There are even experimental hunting and trapping seasons nowadays.

*I’ve read that many European visitors, spotting squirrels on our lawns, are flabbergasted that “wild animals” come up so close to the houses. The gray squirrel is our most common model, but the gray has a naturally-occurring black variant. I see them near Birdseye Hollow Park, and up at Mossy Bank Park, and lately I see them in greater numbers and wider ranges. A friend tells me that the black version was the more common type hundreds of years ago… grays came to the fore as the forest was cut down. Now that so much more of our land is once again forested, blacks are making a comeback – the better to hide beneath the shade of the forest canopy.

Wild Animals I Have Known… in the Finger Lakes (Part 1!)

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I lived for two years in or near the Bloomfields, and now we’ve been 25 years in Bath, and in those years I’ve spent a fair amount of time hiking, walking, or driving. So I’ve seen wildlife, and some of those encounters are worth remembering.

*Using binoculars to watch a herd of deer on Boughton Road near Bloomfield, I was delighted as a red fox arrived. He was minding his own business, and skirting the herd, but that wasn’t enough for one of the deer, which repeatedly lowered its head and rushed the fox… which was way too small to threaten a single deer, let alone a herd. The fox kept circling out farther in hopes of getting around, and the deer kept on blocking, until finally the fox trotted back where it came from, throwing its head over one shoulder to glare at the deer. I could see the fox’s mouth moving, but couldn’t catch what it was saying. Which was probably wasn’t printable anyway.

*On a trail through high brush at Ganondagan State Historic Site, we suddenly came upon a VERY young fawn. Instantly freezing, we rubbernecked around for the mother, which we knew would be close by. We quickly spotted her, looking worried as her little one stumbled toward us. All at once the fawn jerked to a halt, gave us a double-take, and lurched into the brush after mother, who led it quickly away.

*On a somewhat similar trail near Owego, I came upon a baby skunk. To my left was high brush. To my right was a lake. If I reversed course, I’d have to double back about half a mile. Where were the mother and the other offspring? Surely this little one would soon get off the trail?

Well, no. Did the babies spray? I didn’t THINK so, but I couldn’t remember for sure. Finally I retraced my steps a little, turned to face forward again, raced for the baby skunk, flew high over it, and hit the ground running. All ended well, for both of us.

*I was on the hill at the D.E.C. Twin Cedars site near Avon, watching waterfowl down in the lake, when a short-tailed weasel ambled out of high grass, strolled across the trail almost over the toe of my sneaker, and vanished into grass on the other side. (Might have been a least weasel. But the range doesn’t seem right.)

*I was narrating on a bus tour up Canandaigua’s Main Street when one of the out-of-state passengers asked if we had coyotes. Yes, I told her, but we won’t see any on this trip. Seconds later, as we crossed the train tracks, I glanced to my left and there stood a coyote, at 10 o’clock in the morning, looking things over like he was planning to buy the place.

*Watching birds at a pond off Mitchellsville Road in Steuben County, I saw a muskrat swim up to another muskrat on the shore. The two of them rubbed noses and kissed.

*Driving a dirt road near Buena Vista, we saw what we thought was a mastiff shuffling toward us. When it jerked its shocked head up, we saw that it was a yearling bear. The bear rushed off the road and started climbing a tree – a juvenile response, which together with the size and the season of the year convinced us that this was one of the previous year’s young, recently chased off by its mother and now on its own for the first time.

*Interesting though those tales may be, they don’t even mention woodchucks, bobcats, beavers, fishers, rabbits, squirrels, possum, or raccoons – maybe another time!

Is It Fall Yet?

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So… Labor Day is over, and school has more or less begun. So… is it fall yet?

As far as meteorologists are concerned, fall started on September 1, and runs through November 30. OFFICIAL fall, as defined by astronomers, starts on the autumnal equinox (September 22), and runs through to the winter solstice (December 21).

For most of us, the dividing line comes when we break out of that oppressive August heat, and into much cooler, breezier air. For us in the northeast (I grew up in Rhode Island, now live in the Finger Lakes), that happens right around the first week of September. One of these mornings… quite possibly in September… we’ll actually wake up to frost.

Labor Day weekend is usually adequate for swimming, and maybe the next weekend too. In some years you might squeeze out short dips for even a week or two after that, but usually the holiday, or the weekend after, marks the limit.

In Rhode Island one sign of fall is a gang of men and boys… often including me, when I lived there… going from place to place around the pond, hauling in rafts and docks, and heaving their waterlogged bulk up onto the shore, out of the ice that would one day form.

The last monarchs flutter by, struggling toward a southern clime that only a few of them will reach. We won’t rejoice in their red-and-black flashes again until ever-returning spring.

The haunting clamor of the wild geese, passing over in their wedges, makes a mournful joy. If fall has a signature tune on the soundtrack, it’s the call of the Canada geese, with “summer sun upon their wings, winter in their cry.”

Many of our summer birds disappear, the juncos drift down from higher elevations, and our winter birds suddenly dominate the landscape. They’ve been inspecting our feeders for weeks, although here in bear country, I won’t fill them until November. Before too long our yards will be filled with juncos, blue jays, goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves, sparrows, flickers, finches, and redbellies. Not to mention starlings and crows.

Our apple orchards and our cider mills, largely unnoticed much of the summer, become busy happy places. Pumpkins appear in the stores and stands, on the porches and windowsills. Pumpkin spice appears in coffee, cakes, and donuts, and in a remarkable list of other foodstuffs. Some farmers create maize mazes.

Acorns crunch beneath our feet, and horse chestnuts get kicked down the sidewalk. We finally stop mowing the lawn. Orion rises higher and higher in the night sky.

One annoying morning we’ll be rifling through closets and drawers, snapping out questions about where we put the gloves, mittens, and stocking caps. One day, without even noticing that we’ve crossed a dividing line, we’ll be putting on sweaters. We won’t realize it at the time, and we won’t think about it later, but one day will be the last day we wear shorts.

Sales of soda and lemonade will nose-dive, though it’s still a little early for hot chocolate. Cream of Wheat, on the other hand, will reappear on breakfast tables.

Halloween ecstacies will blanket the stores, followed by Thanksgiving floods.

And, of course, the leaves will change. They’re starting already, but as the month and the season wear on the colors will explode. For much of the world, and even much of the nation, the color change is rather subdued. For us in the northeast, Mother Nature flings her entire palette onto our forests. Pay attention when she does. And happy fall.

Look Out for Microclimates!

Quite a few people, over quite a few years, have taken note of the fact that if you’re driving I-86, between Campbell and Savona, you often run into a band of rain, snow, or sleet. There’s something similar going on above Prattsburgh, on the height overlooking the village from the north, along State Route 53. You’ll also find it along I-390, on the height between Dansville and Cohocton.

WHY this should be the case, or even whether they result from the same phenomena, is more than I can tell you. But I take it that they reveal microclimates – small pockets where the climate (and thus the weather) differs from its surroundings. It may differ by only a tiny amount, but it’s enough to make noticeable results.

You’ve already noticed this, on a small and transitory scale, whenever you’ve stepped into the shade to escape the blast of the sun’s direct rays. Not that this has been a problem LATELY!

You’ve also seen it when you lift your eyes unto the hills, and see that they’re covered with snow, while there’s none where you’re standing.

Altitude can make quite noticeable changes, as you can learn if you’re in Bath on a hot summer’s day. Drive on up to Mossy Bank Park, overlooking the village, and you’ll instantly be MUCH more comfortable.

We aren’t the only ones to recognize this. We know that many birds migrate northwrad in summer, and southward for winter. Juncos migrate UPWARD for summer and DOWNWARD for winter. When the snow flies, we enjoy them at our feeders. We meet them again in summer at Mossy Bank Park, or in the gorge of Watkins Glen State Park. Just a few feet of elevation, and a little cover, are all that they need. The climate’s a few degrees cooler, and they’re perfectly happy.

Watkins Glen is so narrow that it blocks out most of the sunshine, meaning that the ice and snow sometimes lie on the trail for weeks after it’s a memory elsewhere, keeping the gorge closed to frustrated hikers and tourists.

In some seasons Letchworth Gorge also preserves ice for a long time, while it can lie under Niagara Falls until midsummer.

As western New Yorkers we’re aware of microclimates that create “lake effect snow.” But I’ve noticed that Steuben County seems to be in an odd little trough that frees it from most of these proverbial snowfalls. Lake Erie lake effect seems to peter out around Hornell. Lake Ontario lake effect gives up the ghost around Canandiagua, or at least around Ingleside. And coastal storms rarely dump much west of Elmira.

We live in Bath village, and drive maybe a quarter-mile to work. We often drive INTO a thick fog bank, as we approach the Conhocton River. Folks in Cameron Mills and elsewhere get similar narrow morning fog bands lining the Canisteo.

And this persists after those rivers flow together to form the Chemung… as you’ve bitterly realized whenever you’ve tried to take an early morning flight out of Corning-Elmira Airport, near Big Flats.

You can thank microclimates for our grape and wine industry. On the eastward-facing slopes (the west side, in other words) of the Finger Lakes, we get a warming effect from the combination of the sun’s rays and the lakes’ heat sink. It’s just warm enough to preserve the vines, and just cold enough to kill the pests, et voila! But I imagine, unfortunately, that global warming will open up that narrow window, and pretty well put us out of business.

Finding the Foliage

As a former resident of Vermont, I know a thing or two about fall foliage.

*And one of the things I know is that the foliage here in the Finger Lakes and Soutnern Tier is JUST AS GOOD as it is in Vermont, even if the hills are not as high.

*So where, around here, do you go to enjoy good foliage? The season’s not quite upon us, but it settles in a little more every day.

*Well, there are several places where you can get up high, and see for miles and miles around, as the countryside is splattered with color like a well-loved artist’s palette.

*One of those places is HARRIS HILL, above Big Flats and outside Elmira. You can enjoy Harris Hill Park and the foliage there, but in particular there’s a lookout right below the glider port. You can look down onto the Chemung River, enjoying the flats and the heights beyond… if you’re lucky, sailplanes will take off right over your head.

*MOSSY BANK PARK has a lookout overviewing historic Bath, the “grande dame of the Southern Tier.” You look right down into the village, the Conhocton River, and Lake Salubria. On a clear day, you can glimpse wind turbines in Prattsburgh and in Howard. The vale of Pleasant Valley stretches toward Keuka Lake, and Mount Washington shoulders its way onto the plain. Now and then eagles and osprey soar by.

*The JUMP-OFF POINT in Ontario County Park north of Naples serves up a delicious view to the west… like Harris Hill and Mossy Bank, it has a precipitous drop to the valley below, and hundreds of acres of foliage to see. (Despite the name, on the whole it’s best if you don’t jump.) This is also the northern terminus of the Bristol Hills Trail, which stretches away southward to meet the Finger Lakes Trail west of Mitchellsville.

*Park on Mitchellville Road (Steuben County Route 13) where the FINGER LAKES TRAIL crosses, and you can hike eastward through the forest along a gorgeous gorge until you come out in a vineyard. Once you exit the vineyard you can stop outside the Urbana town building and soak in the sight of PLEASANT VALLEY in the fall, with the vineyard, cemetery, and high-walled hills all bursting with color. The name of Pleasant Valley goes back to the 1700s, and it still fits perfectly.

*There are multiple points where you can take in the view on KEUKA LAKE: Hammondsport waterfront; Champlin Beach; two scenic pulloffs on Route 54; Red Jacket Park in Penn Yan; Modeste Bedient Library in Branchport; the west-side wineries (Bully Hill, Dr. Frank, Heron Hill, Hunt Country); and a little lookout platform on the Middle Road, by a vineyard.

*STEUBEN COUNTY ROUTE 10, from Bath down to Cameron, makes a great drive through the uplands (Conhocton River through Canisteo River), but it’s undergoing construction just now, so either check beforehand or bookmark the trip for next year.

*I created the tern FOLIAGE VILLAGE, and designated three of them; HAMMONDSPORT, NAPLES, and HONEOYE FALLS. In each case you can stroll and wander the village at whatever pace you like, stopping to take in the color-bursting shade trees and all the other village pleasures.

*Hammondsport has the lake, surrounding hills, and two green squares. Naples has vineyards, surrounding hills, and a mile-long Main Street. Honeoye Falls has the falls themselves, and the Honeoye Creek wending through. Every one is a pleasure, and you set the pace yourself.

The 1935 Flood Devastated Our Region

It’s almost faded from living memory now, but the July 8 flood of 1935 was just as big a disaster regionally as the June flood of 1972 would be. Just as in 1972, the ’35 flood sprang up without warning in the dark hours before dawn. It killed 44 people in New York and Pennsylvania.

*The 1935 event was actually a collection of pretty-much simultaneous floods… on the east-flowing Chemung, the west-flowing Susquehanna, and the north-flowing Genesee, plus all their tributaries; on the Finger Lakes; and on the north-running inlets and outlets of the lakes.

*In Hammondsport the Glen Brook, the Gulf Stream, and Keuka Inlet all flooded. Since the village mainly lies along Glen Brook, and slides downhill from there, it was quickly inundated. Charles Champlin recalled being woken up in the middle of the night at his home on Lake Street, then carried to safety through deep water by his teen-aged cousin Tony Doherty.

*The flood gouged out Orchard Street six feet deep, and scattered brandy casks all across the village. (Tales still abound of how far the casks went, who picked them up, and what they did with the contents.) Farther down Keuka Lake, Keuka Village was flooded too. Damage led the Erie Railroad to give up on the Bath & Hammondsport line, which was then bought by local investors. (The New York-Pennsylvania Railroad likewise gave up its Canisteo connection.)

*Both the Erie and the D.L. & W. lines were unusable in Bath, where boats and canoes plied the waters as far out as the post office.

*The flood wrecked the Erie yards in Hornell, where a Mrs. Case was electrocuted to death as she tried to rescue a lamp in a flooded living room. Her neighbors had taken in a passing family whose car was flooded, and these strangers helped them cart their furnishings to the second floor.

*The Corning Glass Works was flooded, endangering the 200-inch mirror for Mount Palomar Observatory, but the disk later proved unscathed.

*Addison was flooded, and water was knee-deep in Canisteo. In Coopers Plains, farmer J.J. Baker posted a notice looking for two lost heifers and three pigs… we don’t know if he ever got his stock back. Much of Avoca’s farmland was devastated. Things were so bad that at the end of 1935 an Avoca sharecropper received one calf as his total share for a year of mighty labor.

*The flood wrecked the trails, stairs, and infrastructure at Watkins Glen State Park, and carried the gatehouse almost down to Seneca Lake. Owego, Binghamton, Wellsville, Geneseo, and much of Rochester were underwater, along with their neighbors. The water gouged canyons near Arkport.

*A day or two later Governor Herbert Lehman was splashing through the region, among other things sharing a cup of water with a Salvation Army man in Hammondsport. (They had set up a water statuon at the Presbyterian church.) Hornell residents got water at the armory, from the National Guard. Red Cross workers had bread baked for Hornell, and surveyed damage in Hammondsport.

*Longer-range federal projects aimed to make future disasters far less frequent. The Arkport, Almond, and Letchworth dams were created. Civilian Conservation Corps lads planted trees and dug drainage ditches. In some places the rivers were moved, in many places new dikes went up. Avoca became a pilot program for flood control. In 1972 Hornell was spared a repeat disaster by one inch on the Almond dam. That one inch on that one day must have more then justified the original cost of the dam. And that’s just looking at the dollar damage that it prevented… not speaking at all of the lives it saved.

A Quiz (for Fun) on the Finger Lakes Region

Hey… why not a trivia quiz about our Finger Lakes? Not that this stuff is necessarily trivial, but “trivia” emphasizes that it’s just for fun. The asnwers are at the end.

*(1) Which Finger Lake is the only one that does not have a Native American name?

*(2) What community is the birthplace of women’s aviation, AND the birthplace of naval aviation?

*(3) From 1948 to 1976 the Hale Telescope was the largest telescpe in the world. From 1959 to 1973 the Shane Telescope was the SECOND largest in the world. What Finger Lakes company made the giant reflectors for each of these?

*(4) Which winery is U.S. Bonded Winery Number 1 for its state and Federal District?

*(5) Which Finger Lakes metropolis is home to the Great New York State Fair?

*(6) Is Rochester the Flower City, or the Flour City?

*(7) What Finger Lakes city plays host to linked men’s and women’s colleges?

*(8) What and where is New York’s Land-Grant college?

*(9) What thousand-mile foot trail system wends it way through, and beyond, the Finger Lakes?

*(10) What hurricane was responsible for the catastrophic 1972 flood?

*(11) Charles Williamson and Jemima Wilkinson were two of the founders of white settlement in this area, and they didn’t get along. Which one was strait-laced, and which was wild?

*(12) Which Indian Nation created and lived in the city of Ganondagan, near today’s Victor?

*(13) What huge building project went on in the Finger Lakes (and beyond) from 1817 to 1825?

*(14) What city is the Soaring Capital of America… where some of the earliest army glider pilots trained in World War II?

*(15) Which of these people were born in the 14-county Finger Lakes region? Glenn Curtiss, Mitch Miller, John D. Rockefeller, John Lithgow, Cab Calloway, Tommy Hilfiger, Margaret Sanger, Eileen Collins.

*ANSWERS

*(1) Hemlock Lake… although that’s actually a translation of the original Native name.

*(2) Hammondsport. Blanche Stuart Scott became the first American woman pilot there in 1910. In 1911 the navy took possession of its first two aircraft there, and spent the summer testing them out on Keuka Lake.

*(3) Corning Glass Works, back in the 1930s.

*(4) Pleasant Valley Wine Company (established 1860), near Hammondsport.

*(5) Syracuse. The Fair’s been there since 1890, plus occasionally hosting it prior to that.

*(6) You may have credit for either, or both. Rochester used to be the Flour City when milling grain was a big business, and became the Flower City as it became more residential.

*(7) Geneva, home of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

*(8) Cornell University, in Ithaca.

*(9) The Finger Lakes Trail.

*(10) Hurricane Agnes, which killed 18 people in the Corning-Painted Post area, plus others throughout the region.

*(11) Pioneer prophetess Jemima Wilkinson was the strait-laced one. She condemned Williamson’s settlement at Bath as “a cesspool of iniquity.”

*(12) The Seneca.

*(13) The Erie Canal, which moved the economic focus from the Southern Tier to the canal corridor.

*(14) Elmira.

*(15) All of them, Katie!