Tag Archives: Watkins Glen State Park

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.

We’re Still Using New Deal Construction

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A couple of weeks ago, we looked a little at how local folks experienced the Great Depression of roughly 1929-1941. It was a nightmare, but all our efforts to get OUT of the Depression left a very positive mark on our country, and on us locally.

When New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, he threw himself into “the New Deal,” hoping to soften the Depression and build a better future. Social Security was a New Deal program. So was repeal of Prohibition, which put Keuka Lake grapegrowers, shippers, and winemakers back into business.

Putting people to work on construction became a hallmark of the New Deal – the government paid to have the old unused trolley tracks pulled up in Penn Yan.

More visible was work done right in the heart of our coverage area. Painted Post got a new post office, still in use today, with a mural in the lobby (artists need to eat, too). And we’re still crossing the Chemung River on Bridge Street… that bridge was the biggest New Deal project in Corning.

At Bath V.A., which the U.S. had only recently taken over from the state, many of the facilities went back to the 1870s. So one day in 1936 the last surviving Civil War resident wielded a shovel from his wheelchair to ceremonially begin construction of a new modern hospital, which is still in use today.

Roosevelt was a Democrat, but Republican U. S. Representative W. Sterling Cole made sure to secure the funds for the new hospital… AND a new nursing home care unit, AND a new entry bridge… all of them still in use. The V.A. also got reforesting, to the tune of a quarter million seedlings.

Sterling further arranged to vastly expand the Bath Memorial Hospital, now the Pro Action building on Steuben Street, with a new wing joining the two original buildings.

Hammondsport got a brand new school to replace the old Academy, much of which went back before the Civil War. The Glenn H. Curtiss Memorial School, built partly on the old Curtiss home grounds donated by Glenn’s widow, was a K-12 school. It was so cutting-edge that it actually had television when it opened in 1936. Curtiss School was used into the 21st century, and is now privately owned.

Franklin Academy in Prattsburgh also got a hand up. The original 19th-century building burned in 1923 and was replaced the following year. By 1935 it already needed updating, so Prattsburgh got a thorough renovation AND a substantial addition, giving birth to Prattsburgh Central School.

Prattsburgh found that the project was going to run way over the promised funding, so two men went to New York City to plead for more. The official there said he couldn’t do anything, but urged them to go to Washington. Their story of the needs of Prattsburgh’s people had brought tears to his eyes, he said, and a higher authority might be convinced to release more funds. Down they went, sharing a railroad berth to save expenses, and got the funds they needed. Another agency went even further, putting in a ball diamond and athletic fields. The 1935-36 work is still the heart of the school.

Kanona was home to a camp of Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) lads… older teens hired for a year of conservation-related work. C.C.C. created much of the infrastructure for Stony Brook State Park and Watkins Glen State Park, and after catastrophic flooding in 1935 the boys worked mightily on flood-control and soil-conservation projects. The Army Corps of Engineers built dams and Arkport and Almond, while Avoca, Corning, and Addison got improved flood barriers. Believe it or not, the 1972 flood could have been much worse than it was. Some of the thanks should go to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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.

Good Places to Hike, With Easy-On/Easy-Off — Part III

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So – been to Watkins Glen lately?

*Earlier in this space we’ve looked at several easy-on/easy-off trails, where you can get in a satisfying hike without spending half your time just getting to the trail. In ascending order of difficulty we looked at Sperr Park and the Big Flats Trail; Keuka Outlet Trail between Penn Yan and Dresden; and the trails at Mossy Bank Park overlooking Bath.

*If anything, the Gorge Trail at Watkins Glen State Park is even easier to reach – just pull off the village street into the parking lot and you’re there.

*Mossy Bank has a spectacular overlook. Watkins Glen is spectacular every step of the way.

*Thinkers and pontificators from Lao-Tzu to Chairman Mao have remarked on the quiet but terrifying power of water… that while it may be the softest and most yielding of substances, given time it will bore right through the hardest rock. That’s what’s happened here.

*If you start at the lower entrance, on Franklin Street, you pass along the stream, make your way through a short tunnel in the rock, and then pass over the stream on a stone bridge. That short tunnel, and that short bridge, form your portal into a world of mist, stone, water, sharp shadows contrasting with startling sunlight, and noise — for the water roars as it races through the narrow gorge.

*The trail tracks alongside Glen Creek, occasionally tunneling or crossing over, with a low wall between you and the river. You make your way under rock overhangs. You pick your way through muddy underfoot. You push through spray, and you hike to the roar of the falls and the rapids, echoing off the cliffs of stone through which you follow the Creek. (Even where the Creek is quiet, you can still hear it roaring just a few steps away.)

*You also make your way uphill, swimming against the current, so to speak. Near the upper entrance there’s a flight of 180 stone steps. I’ve done it both ways, but it may be good thinking to start at the LOWER entrance, so that your return trip, when you’re tired, is DOWNhill.

*You’re walking through a cleft in the rock… a glen… with rocky cliffs that tower high above you. In many places the stone is covered with moss. Ferns spring forth, and so do precarious hemlocks. Flowers grow here and there, and butterflies make themselves at home. High above you, squirrels scramble in the trees. Check out the juncos, who love cliff spaces like this, a little higher than the surrounding countryside, for their summer homes.

It’s an oft-told tale, but worthwhile all the same. While hiking one day I stopped to help a couple of visitors puzzle out their map and get themselves situated as to which trail they were on, and which way they were headed. “You people should advertise this more,” the woman said. “I’ve been to Hawaii, and I’ve been in their gorges. Their gorges are nothing like this.”

WHAT’S NEARBY: You’re actually in the Village of Watkins Glen, with its famous marina at the head of Seneca Lake. Watkins Glen International is not far off, and the Watkins Glen Motor Racing Research Center (adjoining the public library) always has a classic car on view.

*WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: (a) The Gorge Trail is also part of the main Finger Lakes Tail, and the North Country National Scenic Trail. (b) The park as a whole has 19 waterfalls and 832 stone steps. (c) The visitors center at the lower entrance sells my historic photo books, “Watkins Glen Racing” and “Around Watkins Glen!”