“Everybody burst out singing” when the Great War ended in 1918. But around Keuka Lake, 1919 brought BIG trouble.
*The Curtiss plant in Hammondsport, which had employed almost a thousand people, closed in December ’18 with the end of war orders, never to re-open.
*Farms that had mechanized during the war (to make up for the workers who went into uniform) suddenly had years of time payments ahead, even as prices for their produce collapsed.
*Then the soldiers came home, looking for jobs.
*And Prohibition came in. Wineries were shuttered, and buyers met the grape crop with tepid interest.
*On top of that, the old pattern of tourism was dead. Nineteenth-century families arrived by rail in Penn Yan, Watkins, or Hammondsport, then took a steamboat to a lakeside resort and stayed put for weeks, or even for the whole summer. Nowadays people had cars (and they loved them).
*Hammondsporters touted their village as an ideal place for small aviation firms, and two or three of them took the bait – Mercury Aircraft is still with us. Vineyardists boosted jam, jelly, juice, and table grapes.
*But forward thinkers also seized on a new type of tourism – what we call today the F.I.T., or Fully Independent Traveler – couples or families traveling by car, staying a night or two here and there, and making up their own itineraries.
*A 1919 meeting created the Finger Lakes Association (now Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance, and celebrating its centennial) to market the region. But F.L.A. and others recognized that one of the first things they needed to do was improve the roads. Many villages still had unpaved streets, while the rural roads were often like our Seasonal Use Highways, but not as professionally maintained.
*Fortunately the “Good Roads Movement” was an experienced and enthusiastic pressure group, in Albany and out. When the state decided it could afford to pave EITHER the West Lake Road OR the East Lake Road on Keuka, Governor Al Smith himself came to make the choice.
*East siders wined him and dined him at Keuka Hotel and sent him across the lake by speedboat, confident that they’d won the prize.
*West siders put up picnic tables outside the Gibson House, then had farmers drive their equipment up and down the dirt road, covering tables, picnics, governor and all with throat-choking dust.
*Guess which side got paved?
*Tourist cabins such as Rambler’s Rest in Painted Post appeared, and Tuskegee Guest House in Bath was a beacon for weary African American travelers. “Roadside Architecture,” such as the “showboat” restaurant at Rambler’s Rest and The Wigwams in Jasper enthralled families.
*Keuka Hotel reinvented itself for day use and short-term stays, with miniature golf, name bands on the weekends, and an emphasis on lunches. “Electric Park” near Penn Yan disappeared along with its parent trolley line, but a small amusement park (with a LONG slide into the Keuka Lake) flourished in Pulteney.
*Al Smith assigned Robert Moses to research and propose a modern state park system, and Moses decided that parks should be linked with major cities from which visitors could drive. He selected and acquired the site for Stony Brook Park; New York had acquired Watkins Glen Park in 1911, but now development accelerated.
*Winery tours came back after Prohibition ended in 1933, but glass tourism was a little haphazard (there was no glass museum). Agri-tourism would have been considered hilarious (farms were work, not fun), and since there was no forest to speak of, hunting was limited to pheasant, rabbit, and the like. Fishing was big, though, with the help of the fish hatchery in Bath. As people learned to swim (very rare in the 19th century), they started using the lakes differently, and handling boats more safely.
*And here we are – a hundred years later. Congratulations (and many thanks) to F.L.T.A., and here’s to another century of happy (Fully Independent!) Travelers!