(New York City, N.Y.)—Suffern—Binghamton—Elmira—Corning—Olean—Salamanca—Jamestown—Westfield, State 17.
New Jersey Line to Westfield, 406.4 m.
Erie R.R. roughly parallels route between the New Jersey Line and Jamestown.
Two- and three-lane hard-surfaced roadbed.
State 17, the main east-west highway crossing southern New York, zigzags back and forth, connecting towns that achieved their growth after the construction of the Erie Railroad, which reached Lake Erie in 1851. This important road became as valuable an asset to the southern tier of counties as the Erie Canal was to the central part of the State. Construction was subsidized by nearly $5,000,000 from the State and handsome grants of land from counties, towns, and real estate owners eager to swing the route in their direction. In a speech in 1865 justifying this public aid, William H. Seward said that the people of New York could well afford it because ‘we have not, and with the favor of God never will have, any aristocracy, pensioners and placemen in Church and State to consume the substance of the people.’
Section a. NEW JERSEY LINE to WESTERN JUNCTION WITH US 6; 33.2 m. State 17
This section of State 17 runs through the picturesque Ramapos, along the Ramapo River, and into a country of farms, some of them operated by wealthy summer residents as hobbies and others by families whose livelihood has for generations come from the land.
State 17, continuation of NJ 2, crosses the NEW JERSEY LINE, 0 m., 25 miles north of New York City.
In the near-by hills live the Jackson Whites, whose ramshackle frame houses bespeak their poverty. During the Revolutionary War a trader named Jackson contracted to supply 3,500 British women for the entertainment of His Majesty’s troops in America; after losing part of his cargo during the ocean voyage, he put into the West Indies to fill up his quota with Negro women. When the troops were withdrawn at the end of the war, the women were left behind in New York City, soon to be driven out by the authorities. They moved up into these hills, which already held other social outcasts—remnants of Claudius Smith’s band (see below), runaway slaves, Hessian deserters, and a few Tuscaroras whose ancestors had left the main band during the journey north in 1714 to join the Iroquois Confederacy. The results of this racial interbreeding have been varied; many of the Jackson Whites are bronzed and show clear evidence of Indian blood; an unusually large number are albinos; others show Negro characteristics; and still others exhibit no evidence of Negro or Indian blood.
In SLOATSBURG, 2.6 m. (320 alt., 1,623 pop.), is the SLOT HOUSE (L). The main unit is a brick Greek Revival structure built by Isaac Slot in the early 1800’s on the front of a much older one-story house erected by his father Isaac, for whom the village was named. At the southern end of the village line is SMITH’S TAVERN (L), built on the foundation of an old stagecoach tavern of the same name in which Washington stopped in June 1775. Facsimiles of military instructions from General Washington to General Anthony Wayne, dated ‘Smith’s tavern in ye Clove,’ hang on the walls.
At Sloatsburg is the junction with Stony Brook Drive, leading into the Harriman Section of the Palisades Interstate Park (see Tour 4).
The village of TUXEDO, 5.5 m. (420 alt., 2,000 pop.), is chiefly the utility entrance to TUXEDO PARK (open to public only on July 4), which covers 13,000 acres around Little Wee, Big Little Wee, and Tuxedo Lakes. The beautiful tract was owned in the 1880’s by Pierre Lorillard, the fourth, who decided to make it a refuge for America’s early crop of millionaires. The land was broken up and sold in large tracts, on which were erected turreted mansions of the kind then fashionable. Proof that the Tuxedoites had reached the eminence from which they could set the styles, rather than follow them, is found in the name of the dinner jacket that is now a formal uniform of the males of the Nation. For a long time Mrs. Emily Post, authority on etiquette, lived here.
Right from the railroad station in Tuxedo on a trail that leads to the CLAUDIUS SMITH CAVES, 1 m., shelter of a band of Tory highwaymen. The upper cave, about 9 feet high, 30 feet long, and 6 to 8 feet deep, housed the outlaws, while the lower one, of almost the same size, was the stable. Claudius Smith specialized in stealing horses and cattle from Whigs and selling them to the British; his disregard for human life made him particularly hated, and he was finally captured and executed.
At 8 m. is the junction with State 210, reached by an overpass.
Right on State 210, here part of the Seven Lakes Drive, into the HARRIMAN SECTION (see Tour 4) of the Palisades Interstate Park.
ARDEN, 12.3 m. (520 alt., 200 pop.), is primarily the railroad station of the Harriman Estate.
Right from Arden on a private road (open only to those with passes) into ARDEN, the 20,000-acre estate established by E.H. Harriman (1848–1909) and his wife at the beginning of the twentieth century. On the crest of the Ramapos is the 150-room chateau designed in the French Renaissance style and separated from the forest below by formal gardens of great beauty.
When E.H. Harriman died he left his $100,000,000 holdings intact to his wife, who continued their management until her death. She carried out his desire in transferring to the State the 10,000-acre section of the estate that is now the Harriman Section of the Palisades Interstate Park, and funds for its development as a public recreational area.
State 17 continues northward through HARRIMAN, 14.6 m. (560 alt., 657 pop.), a center of Harriman agricultural activities, to a junction with US 6 (see Tour 4), 17.5 m., on the western edge of Monroe. State 17 unites with US 6 between this point and a junction at 33.2 m. near Middletown (see Tour 4).
Section b. WESTERN JUNCTION OF US 6 to BINGHAMTON; 125.3 m. State 17.
This section of State 17 runs through the Shawangunk Mountains where in the early half of the nineteenth century considerable tanning was done. For many years the Shawangunk Mountains have been a summer resort for New Yorkers.
State 17 branches north from its western junction, 0 m., with US 6 (see Tour 4) on the southern edge of MIDDLETOWN, 2.3 m. (559 alt., 21,844 pop.), a trade center for farmers that has also become a manufacturing city. It produces printers’ supplies, wrapping machines, shirts, machine tools, knives, women’s underwear, and bags, and processes furs and leather. The city grew up along what had been the Minisink Trail, which ran from the Hudson to the headwaters of the Delaware and the Susquehanna.
The road crosses the route of the DELAWARE & HUDSON CANAL, 13.5 m., abandoned in 1899. After William and Maurice Wurts, Philadelphia merchants, had acquired anthracite coal fields in Pennsylvania, they determined to build this canal to carry the coal to the New York and New England markets. The State of New York was persuaded to help supply the funds for canal construction and John B. Jervis, a civil engineer, was placed in charge of the work. The public in general ridiculed the enterprise until December 3, 1828, when the first little fleet, bearing 120 tons of Pennsylvania coal, started down the Hudson. To bring the coal from the mines to the canal Jervis devised a railroad with seven inclined planes and nine miles of trestle. In 1830 he became chief construction engineer of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, for which he had a locomotive, the Experiment, built with such improvements as a forward four-wheel swivel truck to enable it to round curves.
WURTSBORO, 14.7 m. (560 alt., 423 pop.), and its environs have a large summer-vacation population. It is at the junction with US 209 (see Tour 6).
West of Wurtsboro is a picturesque region of lakes and woodland abounding in hotels, camps, and boarding houses in which thousands of New York stenographers, garment workers, clerks, embryo lawyers and doctors annually romp, take on sun tan, discuss world problems, and crowd into two weeks enough romance and adventure to carry them through another eleven and a half months. This is the locale of Having Wonderful Time, Broadway stage hit of 1937–8. All summer long the road is crowded with every make and age of automobile; the older the machine the greater its burden of sun-goggled, kerchiefed vacationists.
MONTICELLO, 27 m. (1,524 alt., 3,630 pop.), seat of Sullivan County, is the capital of this vacationland that spreads to the Neversink Valley on the east and the Mongaup Valley on the west. In and near the town are large rambling hotels—many of them advertising kosher meals; and half of the town’s householders rent every room that can be spared from family needs.
Left near the western end of the town on State 42 to (L) MERRIWOLD PARK (private), 6.3 m., a large resort club surrounding a small lake. The homes range from small log cabins to fairly elaborate mansions. One of the most picturesque is SHO FOO DEN (Jap., maple-pine palace), constructed in Japan and sent to the United States in 1904 to house the Japanese exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition. The structure was brought here by Dr. Jokichi Takamine, the Japanese chemist who first isolated adrenalin and who was the donor of the Japanese cherry trees in Washington.
State 17 turns northwestward to LIBERTY, 38.9 m. (1,581 alt., 3,789 pop.), a year-round resort with toboggan slides and ski trails and a program of winter carnivals and races. It also has a large private tuberculosis sanatorium.
At 50 m. is the junction with Johnson Hill Road (R) to BEAVERKILL STATE CAMPSITE (50 fireplaces, swimming), along a popular trout stream. This entire region is a favorite with trout fishermen.
At the western end of EAST BRANCH, 70.7 m. (1,007 alt., 300 pop.), is the junction with State 30 (see Tour 24). State 17 follows the East Branch of the Delaware River to HANCOCK, 82.5 m. (920 alt., 1,427 pop.), a summer resort at the junction of the East and West Branches of the Delaware. DEPOSIT, 96 m. (1,000 alt., 1,887 pop.), is another summer resort.
At 120.3 m. is a junction with US 11 (see Tour 18), which unites with State 17 to Binghamton.
BINGHAMTON, 125.3 m. (845 alt., 78,242 pop.) (see Binghamton), is at the junction with State 7 (see Tour 10) and US 11 (see Tour 18).
Section c. BINGHAMTON to ELMIRA; 57.7 m. State 17
This section of State 17 runs along the south bank of the Susquehanna and then the north bank of the Chemung River through rolling farm land. West of Binghamton the highway follows the trail used in 1779 by the Sullivan-Clinton expedition.
In BINGHAMTON, 0 m., is the junction with State 17C, recommended as a better paved alternate between Binghamton and Owego.
Right from Courthouse Square in Binghamton on Main St. (State 17C), crossing the Chenango River. This 20-mile road runs through the communities that have grown up around the factories and offices of the Endicott-Johnson Corporation, manufacturer of shoes. The corporation has 29 factories, surrounded by the homes, gardens, and parks it has built for its 19,000 employees.
The corporation was built up and its policy determined by George F. Johnson, who was born in Massachusetts in 1857 and left school at the age of 13 to work in a small boot-making factory. In 1881 he secured a position in a shoe factory in Binghamton, and a few years later persuaded his employer to build a new factory outside the city at a place now called Johnson City on the theory that industry should be removed from congested centers. After the lean years of the 1890’s Henry B. Endicott, the chief stockholder of the company, put Johnson in charge of reorganization. Johnson’s program was, ‘Cut out the frills and unnecessary costs and give the workers an incentive to produce—put them on piecework at a decent rate.’
As business expanded Johnson was able to put into practice his plan of providing homes that the workers could buy on time payments with a low carrying charge. When the company became a corporation he established a system whereby workers shared in the profits, and 2¼¢ were added to the cost of each pair of shoes to cover welfare activities for employees. In 1940 the employees voted against being represented by a CIO or an A.F. of L. union.
At the eastern entrance of JOHNSON CITY, 2.1 m. (847 alt., 17,952 pop.), is an archway, erected by Endicott-Johnson employees, with the inscription, ‘Home of the Square Deal.’ The Pioneer factory still stands. In the village are several recreational parks laid out by the company.
In ENDICOTT, 7.3 m. (840 alt., 17,657 pop.), are the headquarters and several factories of the Endicott-Johnson Corporation and of the International Business Machines Corporation.
State 17C continues through WEST ENDICOTT, 8.5 m., newest and most delightful of the Endicott-Johnson villages.
UNION, 8.7 m., was so named because it was at this place that the forces of Sullivan and Clinton met in August 1779. Sullivan had come up from Pennsylvania and Clinton down from the Mohawk. Endicott, Union, and West Endicott were consolidated in 1921.
At OWEGO, 21.2 m., State 17C meets State 17 (see below).
State 17 crosses the Susquehanna to OWEGO, 22.3 m. (818 alt., 4,742 pop.), which came into existence on the site of Ah-wah-ga (where the valley widens), one of the Indian towns destroyed by the Sullivan-Clinton troops in 1779. Owego is an important railroad junction. The only factory of importance belongs to the Endicott-Johnson Corporation.
During the late 1800’s Tom Platt’s annual pancake breakfasts, the windup of Republican victory celebrations, were served in the main dining room of the AHWAGAH HOTEL, still in operation at 213 Front Street. At sunrise, after a night of hilarity, Platt and his cohorts, party workers from the Southern Tier, would gather at the hotel to eat pancakes and drink black coffee until midday. Thomas Collier Platt (1833–1910), born in Owego, was graduated from the Owego Academy. In 1870 he and Roscoe Conkling organized a powerful political machine that broke the hold Horace Greeley and Senator Reuben Fenton had on the State.
Owego is at the junction with State 17C (see above), State 2 (see Tour 30), and State 38 (see Tour 8).
When in 1915 Theodore Dreiser and a friend made a trip over this route, driving the whole way to Indiana in a ‘handsome sixty-horsepower Pathfinder’ with leather seats, the trip was enough of a novelty for Dreiser to write a book, Hoosier Holiday, about it. The adventurers had at first intended to take the ‘State road’—up along the Hudson and across to Buffalo; but they daringly decided to cut across the lower part of the State. Before starting they equipped themselves with belted dustcoats and visored caps. They reported triumphantly that they had no difficulty in finding gasoline, though the price varied from $1.25 to $1.75 for seven gallons.
WAVERLY, 40.9 m. (839 alt., 5,662 pop.), on the Chemung River, is contiguous to Sayre and Athens, Pennsylvania; the three villages have a combined population of approximately 18,000. The Lehigh Valley Railroad shops in Sayre are the chief place of employment.
From DEVIL’S ELBOW, 44.3 m., so called from a sharp bend in the river, is an impressive view of the winding Chemung Valley.
At 54.8 m. is the junction with the Newton Battle Reservation Road.
Right on this road, up a steep grade, to the NEWTON BATTLEFIELD RESERVATION, 1.1 m., a 200-acre park, including the only real battlefield of the Sullivan-Clinton expedition. Here on August 29, 1779, the whites killed 12 Indians and the Indians slew three of the invaders.
ELMIRA, 57.7 m., (860 alt., 45,046 pop.) (see Elmira), is at the junction with State 14 (see Tour 27).
Section d. ELMIRA to OLEAN; 108.3 m. State 17
This section of State 17 runs through important manufacturing towns and through the State’s oil fields.
Between ELMIRA, 0 m., and Big Flats, State 17E is the better and more direct route.
Left from Madison Ave. in Elmira on State 17E, which follows the northern bank of the Chemung River to the junction with the Harris Field Rd., 5.7 m.; R. here 1.5 m. to HARRIS FIELD, one of several glider fields in this vicinity used for the National Glider Meet, which is held annually in July; wind direction determines which field is used. New American altitude and distance glider records were established at the Elmira meet in 1938: Richard C. DuPont reached a height of 6,700 feet, and Peter Riedel glided from Harris Hill to Washington, D.C., a distance of 225 miles.
State 17E joins State 17 at BIG FLATS, 8.8 m. (see below).
West of Elmira, State 17 swings north, running in common with State 14 (see Tour 27) for 3.4 miles. BIG FLATS, 11.5 m. (900 alt., 600 pop.), is at the junction with State 17E (see above).
CORNING, 18.7 m. (937 alt., 16,140 pop.), is divided by the Chemung River; on all sides, steep slopes rise to the plateau, and the winter sun shines briefly here.
Corning is largely a one-industry town, depending on the manufacture of glass; and because glassmaking, as carried on here, requires the services of highly skilled workers and research staffs, the city has an air of stability and exhibits cultural interests unusual in a small manufacturing center, as evidenced by its Civic Orchestra, Choral Society, annual concerts by outstanding performers, and Little Theater Guild.
The village began to grow after the completion of the Chemung Canal in 1833. Erastus Corning of Albany had organized a company to speculate in local real estate and promoted the building of a railroad to carry Pennsylvania anthracite here for transshipment down the canal. In 1868, when the Flint Glass Company of Brooklyn determined to move its plant to a place where the cost of fuel and raw materials would be lower, it was induced to come here. The company was reorganized and Corning citizens subscribed to two fifths of the new stock issue.
The CORNING GLASS WORKS (showrooms open to public, plant only by special permission) is strung along the water front, a series of 40 brick buildings, some of which have been remodeled with the use of glass brick. In 1875 the glassmaking company, which then had only two furnaces and employed 100 workers, began to specialize in the production of special kinds of glass, including railway and marine signal lenses, lantern globes, thermometer tubing, gauge tubing, and laboratory ware. The bulb business was started in response to Thomas A. Edison’s need for a practical electric light bulb. Today one factory unit produces more than half a million lamp and radio bulbs a day and manufactures much of the neon tubing used in the United States.
By 1910 the Corning Company had established its own research laboratory to study the physical and chemical nature of glass, and it now has the largest research staff in the glass industry. An important achievement of the laboratory was the invention of Pyrex, a tough borosilicate composition with heat, chemical, and electrical resistance far beyond that of ordinary glass. At first it was used only for chemical laboratory ware, but is now used for cooking utensils, railway lenses, and electrical insulators. The 200-inch Mount Palomar Observatory telescope mirror disc, the largest single piece of glass ever cast, was made here. Other products are special glasses that either filter or transmit X-rays, ultra-violet rays, and infrared rays.
In the Fibre Products Division, glass fibres, which have the appearance of silk and wool, are produced. The coarser grades of this material are used for building insulation, the finer grades in the manufacture of cloth, electrical insulation tape, chemical filters, battery separators, and filters for air-conditioning systems.
In 1938 new and highly ingenious automatic glassmaking machinery was installed; but in the Steuben Division, where very fine decorative glassware is made, each piece is individually created, and the delicate and precise manipulations of the skilled workmen are apparent in every piece.
The OBSERVATORY MUSEUM (open 8:30 a.m.–10 p.m.), center of the Public Square, was built in 1939 to house the first 200-inch lens cast in 1934 for the great telescope in the Mount Palomar Observatory in California. The museum is a small, round building of glass brick, constructed to resemble an observatory. The immense lens on display is about 17 feet in diameter, 27 inches thick, and weighs 40,000 pounds. It is made of the same kind of glass of which a casserole is made. To reduce the weight, cores were placed in the mold, and thus the back of the disc has a waffle-iron pattern.
When this disc was poured in March 1934, the heat of the molten glass was so intense (2,300 degrees Fahrenheit) that some of the cores broke loose and the disc was imperfectly molded. A second and perfect disc was cast a few months later and is now being polished in California. Small copies of the disc are sold as souvenirs at the museum.
PAINTED POST, 21.3 m. (950 alt., 2,332 pop.), at the point where the Tioga and Cohocton Rivers unite to form the Chemung, was so named because of a red-painted oaken post that was once here, probably erected as a memorial either to an Indian victory or to an Indian chief. The first white settler arrived in 1789, ten years after the Sullivan-Clinton expedition had wiped out the Indian village by the river. Most of the inhabitants of the town and vicinity are employed in Painted Post machine shops, foundry, and branch plant of the Ingersoll Rand Company.
Painted Post is at the junction with US 15 (see Tour 31), which unites with State 17 between this point and ERWINS, 25.2 m., a hamlet. At the western end of JASPER, 49.3 m. (1,578 alt., 250 pop.), is the junction with State 21 (see Tour 29), which unites with State 17 for a short distance westward.
The divide (2,308 alt.) between the St. Lawrence and the Susquehanna watersheds, at 61 m., marks the eastern rim of the New York oil field, part of the great field centering in Pennsylvania. This Allegany field differs from those of the Southwest in that no derricks dot the landscape and much of the production is carried on by independent landowners with small holdings.
The presence of oil in this region has been known by white men since 1627, when a French missionary priest reported that the Indians used a ‘good kind of oil.’ By 1789 the Indians were selling small quantities of petroleum to whites for use in lamps; a 1795 gazetteer of the United States referred to Allegany County ‘Seneca oil’ as ‘a sovereign remedy for various complaints.’ It was 1850, however, before a process for refining petroleum was invented.
Some prospecting was carried on in New York in the sixties but there were no spectacular strikes; the Triangle (see below) was producing in 1879 but attracted little interest. By May 1881, however, when the combined production of 13 wells near Wellsville was 219 barrels a day, the price of some Allegany County land had risen to $200 an acre. In the middle of the decade production was 5,000,000 barrels a day. Then began a steady decline and only 750,000 barrels were marketed in 1913. But after the introduction of the ‘flooding’ technique—forcing the oil up out of the wells by water pressure—production rose steadily; in 1937 Allegany County produced 5,478,000 barrels of petroleum.
WELLSVILLE, 76.3 m. (1,517 alt., 5,674 pop.), the hub of the Allegany County oil field, is a town of beautiful old homes and much wealth. Settled in 1795 and named for Gardiner Wells, early settler and chief landowner, it has continued to prosper since the completion of Triangle No.1 in 1879, about four miles to the southwest. The well got its name from the fact that it was the third of a series forming a triangle.
Wellsville is at the junction with State 19 (see Tour 35).
BOLIVAR, 90.3 m. (1,609 alt., 1,725 pop.), inhabited chiefly by workers in the oil fields, was named for General Simon Bolivar when the South American patriot was a popular hero. Some of the farmers near Bolivar, with the help of donkey engines, collect oil in small quantities as a sideline to agriculture; after milking their cows they go out to bring in the oil, which is collected at the gate by truckers and hauled to refineries.
OLEAN, 108.3 m. (1,440 alt., 21,790 pop.), on the Allegheny River, an important junction of the Erie and Pennsylvania Railroads, is a receiving depot for the Socony-Vacuum refineries of the local oil field and manufactures glass, oil-well machinery, and steel cabinets. Like other towns in the vicinity it came to life as a lumber camp. From their lumber settlers built rafts to sell to emigrants who gathered here to await the spring flood which would float them down the Allegheny and the Ohio to the West.
Olean is at junction with State 16 (see Tour 38).
Section e. OLEAN to WESTFIELD; 81.9 m. State 17
West of OLEAN, 0 m., the route runs through the Allegany Indian Reservation, skirting Allegany State Park, and follows the shore of Chautauqua Lake.
At the eastern end of ALLEGANY, 3 m. (1,425 alt., 1,411 pop.), is (L) ST. BONAVENTURE COLLEGE AND SEMINARY, a Franciscan institution chartered in 1875; it has about 450 students. The campus is beautifully landscaped.
Opposite (R), on the brow of the hill, is ST. ELIZABETH’S ACADEMY, a girls’ school organized in 1859 and conducted by Franciscan nuns.
The eastern end of the 30,000-acre ALLEGANY INDIAN RESERVATION is at 6.9 m. the reservation extends for 40 miles in a long, thin arc following the northern boundary of Allegany State Park. About 900 Senecas and a scattering of Cayugas live here on small farms. This reservation differs from others in the State in that a number of white settlements, including the city of Salamanca, have been built within its confines. The white men hold the land on long-term leases. The State appoints an attorney to guard the legal interests of the Indians.
At 10.9 m. is the eastern junction with US 219 (see Tour 39), which unites with State 17 for several miles.
SALAMANCA, 18.9 m. (1,380 alt., 9,654 pop.), a market town, is becoming a winter and summer resort. The first settlers came here from what is now West Salamanca in 1862, when a sawmill was established and the Atlantic & Great Western (now part of the Chicago & Erie Railroad) carried its single track line to this point. When the railroad company built shops and yards here, the grateful citizens named their village in honor of one of the important stockholders. Soon tanneries were opened and the population increased rapidly; everyone was sure that Salamanca was destined to become a metropolis when the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Railroads made the town one of their repair and division points. But the period of prosperity did not endure; the railroad shops were moved away and in time the growing furniture factories were moved to Jamestown.
In Salamanca is the western junction with US 219 (see Tour 39).
State 17 continues to RED HOUSE, 25.2 m., the chief gateway to Allegany State Park.
Left from Red House on park roads into the 65,000-acre ALLEGANY STATE PARK, 0.8 m., pleasant rolling woodland with numerous streams and high lookouts. The highest point is PARKER HILL (2,376 alt.). Wildlife is plentiful; the most interesting of the fauna is the giant hellbender, a large salamander of aquatic and nocturnal habits; it is sometimes seen in the daytime moving slowly along the bottoms of streams.
Arrangements for use of park facilities are made in the ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, 2.8 m., on Red House Lake, and at the camping headquarters in Quaker Run Valley. The park is well developed for use in summer and winter (354 partly furnished cabins—bring your own linen—$1.50 a day, $7 a week, $20 a month, $75 a year; well-equipped trailer campsites, 50¢ a night, $2 a week). In the administration building are a museum and a restaurant; several marked nature and hiking trails start here, and near by are picnic grounds, tennis courts, a lake (bathing, fishing), an athletic field (free), and riding stables. Ski trails have recently been built.
The business and smoke-covered factory district of JAMESTOWN, 54.9 m. (1,400 alt., 45,502 pop.), clusters about the outlet of Chautauqua Lake; the prim residential districts with tree-lined streets cover the hillsides. The city has an air of constant activity and bustle, accented by the clangor of many large red interurban electric cars.
Jamestown is one of the leading furniture-manufacturing centers of the United States; it also produces textiles, ball bearings, tools, milking machinery, voting machines, and washers. The founder of the settlement was James Prendergast, who purchased 1,000 acres of land his brother had earlier bought from the Holland Land Company for $2 an acre. Among the early settlers were a number of skilled woodworkers, who began to make furniture to supply the needs of the pioneers in the region. In 1849 some Swedish immigrants appeared; after the close of the Civil War many others joined them. Most of the men were cabinet makers attracted by the furniture factories. In 1888, two years after Jamestown had become officially a city, construction of metal furniture was begun.
The population is now predominantly of Swedish descent or birth. Swedish economic ideals are evident in the conduct of such enterprises as the locally owned and operated telephone services with annual rates as low as $20 and a toll-free service covering 250 square miles; and in the profitable municipally owned and operated electric light and power system. Swedish culture is also apparent in the restaurants of the city, which are notable for the quality and variety of their foods.
In six-acre FENTON MEMORIAL PARK, S. Main St. and Fenton Place, is a bronze STATUE OF REUBEN E. FENTON (1819–85), who was elected to the State Assembly in 1849 and to the House of Representatives in 1852 as a Democrat. He broke with his party on the slavery issue, helped organize the Republican party in the State, and as a Republican served in Congress (1856–64), as governor (1865–9), and as U.S. senator (1869–75). The 32-room FENTON HOUSE, a three-story red brick structure in the park, is used by veterans’ organizations and their auxiliaries.
Left from Washington St. in Jamestown on State 17J (Third St.), an alternate to State 17 along the shore of Chautauqua Lake.
CHAUTAUQUA, 16.8 m. (1,340 alt., 300 pop.), with accommodations for 15,000 visitors (hotels $20 to $60 a week; housekeeping apartments, $50 to $150 a season; cottages $200 up a season; facilities for boating, swimming, golfing, tennis), offers a varied program during July and August, including a summer school conducted by New York University, a public lecture series, and outstanding musical concerts. The movement was the child of the revival-camp meeting and of the lyceum, offspring of the American passion for painless self-improvement, and the mother of the radio program and the university extension course. Despite variations and mutations, the basic characteristics of the family persist. The exhorters and lecturers of the revival and lyceum days were the backbone of the Chautauqua; many of its graduates, including Edgar Bergen, are radio stars.
In 1872 John Heyl Vincent (1832–1920), a clergyman, was corresponding secretary of the Methodist Sunday School Association and editor of its publications; distressed by the lack of interest and education among Sunday school teachers, he attempted to inaugurate a new kind of teaching at Camptown, New Jersey. His first innovation was to make a large outdoor map of Palestine and to have his adult pupils follow him over it, telling the stories of Biblical events at appropriate places. The experiment was so successful that, with the aid of Lewis Miller, a businessman, he planned to hold a short term of school for Sunday school teachers at the campmeeting grounds at Chautauqua. Those who attended the first session, in 1874, went home filled with enthusiasm. In a very few years the attendance had become Nation-wide and ‘Chautauquas’ had been organized in many other States. Before long the programs, always advertised as providing ‘pure, wholesome entertainment,’ were broadened, and by 1890 practically every type of entertainer now heard on the radio program was appearing before Chautauqua audiences—politicians, explorers, Swiss bellringers, banjoists, xylophonists, glee clubs, rabbis, priests. The exception was the ‘actor.’ The stage was still anathema to the church members of rural America and such actors as appeared—in carefully denatured versions of plays that were called ‘readings’—were disguised as ‘elocutionists’ or’ readers.’
The all-time star of the Chautauquas was William Jennings Bryan, last of the line of American orators; audiences came year after year to hear him repeat the speech he made at the Democratic National Convention of 1896 in opposition to the gold standard, and swayed raptly as he concluded: ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.’
Chautauqua assemblies are still held, but in steadily decreasing numbers; the motion picture, the radio, and the motor car supply more entertainment than they can give and supply them the year round.
At MAYVILLE, 20.8 m., is the junction with State 17.
Northwest from Jamestown State 17 follows the northern shore of Chautauqua Lake through an almost continuous summer resort.
MAYVILLE, 75.9 m. (1,340 alt., 1,324 pop.), at the junction with State 17J (see above) and the head of Chautauqua Lake, is the seat of Chautauqua County.
State 17 continues westward through vineyards to WESTFIELD, 81.9 m. (748 alt., 3,466 pop.) (see Tour 8), at the junction with US 20 (see Tour 8).