For fifty years or so after the Civil War, railroad routes channeled the course of presidential campaigns. This very sensibly took candidates to major population centers, but also gave them a chance to “whistle stop” at in-between towns that never see major candidates nowadays. When Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign train stopped at Cameron Mills, he spotted the milk station manager with his nine children on the loading dock. “This is the most prosperous place I have been to yet,” TR quipped (he only had five himself).
Roosevelt (running for vice-president as a Republican) and William Jennings Bryan (Democratic presidential candidate) both stumped Corning in 1900. Bryan was one of the country’s greatest orators. Four years earlier, at 36 just barely eligible for the White House, he had come out of nowhere to seize the Democratic and Populist nominations, running on a reform ticket. In 1900 he was rematched against McKinley, who conducted a “front porch” campaign, meeting friendly groups in Ohio while sending the energetic, combative Roosevelt out on the hustings.
On arriving in Bath in October ‘00, Bryan led a parade from the station to the courthouse square. Many in attendance were enthusiastic supporters, though the crowd included opponents, one of whom carried a banner (now in Steuben County Historical Society’s collection) reading “Bryan is in the Enemy’s Country.” Some no doubt just wanted to experience the prairie wind with which Bryan was scouring the land. The Democratic and Republican newspapers disagreed widely as to what kind of welcome he got.
New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee in 1944 and 1948) made frequent appearances in Corning. Dewey and IBM founder Tom Watson (of Campbell) made sure that their 1952 choice (Dwight D. Eisenhower) got good face time too. But by then campaign trips were revolving around airports, not depots. Local partisans were on their own, as Pulteney Democrats had been in 1892 when they slung a large banner for Grover Cleveland and Adlai Stevenson (grandfather of Eisenhower’s opponent 60 years later).
With TV, radio, and Internet to reach voters, major candidates mostly leave small communities to the “third parties” with their quixotic campaigns. Ralph Nader in 2000 let his hair down enough to freely express his surprise at discovering he was giving a press conference in Corning… it was a very busy tour, and he’d thought it was Binghamton.