History, Natural History & the Arts
As the population of interior New York increased, developers pushed for a faster method of transportation between the area and developed population centers like the city of New York.
The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, revolutionized inland travel and ushered in a broader era of canal construction across the state, connecting the state capital of Albany on the Hudson River to Western New York and the Great Lakes. [Read more…] about The Canal Era in the Finger Lakes
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 officially ended hostilities between the British and Americans; however, the treaty did not include the allied Indian Nations, leaving their legacy treaties with the Europeans unresolved and their future to be resolved through separate treaties with the new American government. [Read more…] about Euro-American Expansion Into The Finger Lakes Region
On Monday, February 19th, 1917, Bankruptcy Referee Stone closed the books on the Montezuma Fibre Company, ending the short history of a business now forgotten. The company was $69,876 dollars in debt and the investors of the company were going to lose all. After ten years of business, the company had only $1,619 left in the bank.
The Montezuma Fibre Company had it origins in 1906 when Eugene Kimmey of Syracuse came up with a process to use flag (what we now call cat tails) as the main ingredient in making a heavy weight, cardboard like paper. The 20,000 acres of Montezuma swamps were filled with “Montezuma wheat”, or flag. It grew wild, it was easy to harvest and the land it grew on was cheap. In the late 1800’s many locals supplemented their income by harvesting and shipping flag to distant cities for use in the making chair seats and caulking barrels. But for all their efforts these men barely made a small dent in the vast swamp filled with cat tails. Thus, the raw material sat waiting for someone to invent a way to use it. [Read more…] about The Cat Tail Company: Montezuma Fibre