Bound Volumes, Hometown History

July 31, 2025

110 YEARS AGO

Miss Lou Rogers, a talented cartoonist and one of the very best of her sex so engaged, visited Oneonta yesterday and last evening she gave a public exhibition of her work in front of the Windsor Hotel following the band concert. Miss Rogers was introduced by Professor W.H. Lynch, who complimented her upon the enviable reputation she has won. Miss Rogers made some clever drawings calculated to arouse interest in Equal Suffrage and to arouse interest in the question among the voters. She keeps talking about the picture while at work and her words are effective also. One drawing illustrated the hand of politics about the American home controlling all that enters and all that affects its welfare, she said. She sketched the “most independent thing in the world,” a fat, sleek porker which she named “business greed” and then completed the picture by putting power in the hands of women to control it effectively.

July 1915

90 YEARS AGO

Having completed their study of Indian sites in this locality, at least temporarily, members of the archaeological staff of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences were engaged last night in packing the artifacts which they have uncovered and making preparations to move to sites in other sections of the state. The last site which was studied by the group was the Oneonta Hilltop site located in secluded vale about six and one-half miles southeast of Oneonta. The site was reported by Frank M. Hill and Roland B. Hill, local archaeologists. The latter gentleman is a special member of the expeditionary staff. The site is described by archaeologists as a “workshop site.” It is unique in that the artifacts found there consist entirely of those belonging to the early stages of the third period or culture of Algonkian occupation. While an unusually large number of flint pieces have been found at the site, the archaeological investigation established that the flint is not native to the site.

July 1935

40 YEARS AGO

One day after pitching the first Oneonta Yankee no-hitter at Damaschke Field in 11 years, right-handed ace Dody Rather was sent to the Yankee’s Class A farm club at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Wednesday night, Rather struck out 14 Watertown Pirates and held his opponents hitless. Club owner Sam Nader awarded Rather $100 for his mound work. Rather, a 21-year-old native of Houston who attended San Jacinto Junior College, was a first round draft choice in the secondary phase of the 1984 draft. He won no games and lost four at Oneonta in 1984. This year he has the best record on the staff, with eight wins, no losses, a 0.31 earned run average, 88 strikeouts, and just 10 walks in 88 innings of pitching. He recorded four complete games and two shutouts. Early in the season Rather had a string of more than 48 innings without yielding an earned run. That streak was snapped at Newark when Ty Nichols hit a two-run homer off him.

July 1985

20 YEARS AGO

Astronomers announced Friday that they have discovered a new planet larger than Pluto in orbit around the sun. The planet is the farthest known object in the solar system at a distance of 9 billion miles from the sun, or about three times Pluto’s current distance from the sun. “This is the first object to be confirmed to be larger than Pluto in the outer solar system,” Michael Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, said. Brown considers the new discovery to be the 10th planet in the solar system. However, there are scientists who dispute that classification for Pluto which is estimated to be one and one-half times smaller than the estimated size of the newly discovered planet.

July 2005