hometown history - Page 5

135 YEARS AGO: Excerpts from a letter responding to quote taken from the New York Tribune: “The hop crop has left New York millions of dollars worse off; that hop culture has been the means of causing several counties of the state to pass twice over through bankruptcy; that farms prostituted to this delusive product have already been, on the average, twice under the hammer, or are mortgaged so deeply that they will take their second leap very soon. So,…

90 YEARS AGO: A big army bomber flew itself over a triangular course today. Only at the take-off and landing did the pilot put his hands on the controls. Army Air Corps officers hailed the feat as “successful automatic radio navigation.” But, the engineers emphasized there is no thought of sending huge bombing planes, crewless, to rain death upon an enemy in any future war, even though England’s little “Queen Bee” planes have demonstrated that unmanned aircraft can be flown…

110 YEARS AGO: Decline in Passenger Traffic—The number of travelers over the Delaware & Hudson lines is far below normal and the decrease is felt all over the system. Through-travel between Albany and Rouses Point, as reported on the June statement, shows a deplorable loss of 31 percent as compared with last year. The group of trains running between Albany and Rutland earned 23 percent less than they did last June. Between Albany and Binghamton, earnings are 15 percent off,…

90 YEARS AGO: Political satire has a way of flourishing in spite of governmental opposition, and in Germany no edict of Adolf Hitler seems powerful enough to check the “underground” manufacture of pointed jibes at the ruler of the Reich. The story goes that Hitler went to see a movie incognito by himself and took his seat unobtrusively in the rear of the house. When the newsreel came around and Hitler’s picture was flashed on the screen, everyone stood up…

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…

135 YEARS AGO: Lawn tennis is becoming a fashionable out-of-door sport in Oneonta this summer. Already, several courts have been laid out, Dietz, Elm, Maple and Ford Avenue each having one court or more. Saturday afternoon of last week the Maple Street and Ford Avenue clubs met for the first time. The double was won by Messrs. Lauren and Giles by a score of 6 to 2. The first single was won by J. Lauren, 6 to 3; and the…

40 YEARS AGO: Enid Carter closed the door on 32 years of her life with the end of the school year at Oneonta high school. She has sold her mobile home in Oneonta and returned to Bovina Center to the house once owned by her grandparents.…

70 YEARS AGO: Hundreds of persons flocked to the Gas Avenue crossing of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad yesterday to see the results of a wreck that blocked both mainline tracks for six hours and 17 minutes. Three empty freight cars in the middle of an 11-car train went off the track at 8:50 a.m. One demolished the watchman’s cabin, ramming it into the millrace. Another tipped over onto the southbound main tracks and the third stopped upright against the…

70 YEARS AGO: Oneonta has passed the 120 mark in the Friendly Town campaign to give hearty summertime vacations to as many deserving underprivileged New York City Fresh Air children as possible. Chairman Jack Bresee called the appeal to date “heartwarming.”…