Patooie!

by Erin Doane, Senior Curator 

Spittoons are particularly American artifacts. No one used to spit like we did here in the good old U.S.A. during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Lobby of the Hotel Rathbun, 1910s

In his 1899 book, American Notes, Rudyard Kipling wrote a vivid description of the practice:

In a vast marble-paved hall, under the glare of an electric light, sat forty or fifty men, and for their use and amusement were provided spittoons of infinite capacity and generous gape. Most of the men wore frock-coats and top-hats – the things that we in India put on at wedding-breakfast, if we possess them – but they all spat. They spat on principle. The spittoons were on the staircases, in each bedroom – yea, and in chambers even more sacred than these. They chased one into retirement, but they blossomed in chiefest splendor round the bar, and they were all used, every reeking one of them. 

Baldwin Kolb’s saloon, 1896

As Kipling reported, spittoons could, indeed, be found seemingly everywhere – business offices, bars, billiard parlors, hotel lobbies, post office, reading rooms, courtrooms, train cars, men’s club, and even the U.S. House and Senate Chambers. But why? What was all the spitting about?

Sitting room at the Hotel Rathbun with a spittoon tucked discretely behind the column on the right, 1910s

The main reason for the large amount of expectoration was chewing tobacco. In the early 1800s, chewing tobacco began to replace pipes and powdered snuff as the preferred methods of using tobacco. Snuff was seen as distinctly British, and pipes could be cumbersome to care for and use. Chewing tobacco was more convenient and didn’t pose a fire risk. Civil War soldiers on both sides chewed tobacco as a way to cope with boredom, stress, and even hunger in the field. One of the downsides is that swallowing tobacco juice is damaging to the digestive system and can cause acute nicotine poisoning. Spitting out the juice is necessary. 

Fred Ferris’s bar and liquor store, early 1900s

In rural settings, those chewing tobacco would just spit on the ground. Those in urban settings also just spat on the ground, which led to the ubiquity of the spittoon. At its most basic level, a spittoon is a bowl into which one spits. Many designs have funnel-shaped lids with holes in the center to keep the saliva, etc. contained. They can be made out of a wide variety of materials including ceramic, porcelain, glass, and metals like tin and brass. We have several different types of spittoons in the museum’s collection.

Stoneware spittoon made in Elmira by E. W. Farrington, c. 1890

Glazed ceramic spittoon with corked hole on the side for emptying, late 1800s

Porcelain spittoon with floral decoration, late 1800s

Four tin spittoons each with removable lids that were used in Chemung County buildings during the early 1900s

Brass spittoon from the second Chemung Canal Bank building, 1920s

Another cause of excessive sputum and the need to spit was respiratory illness; in particular tuberculosis, or consumption as it was called in the 19^th century. A 1907 article in the Star-Gazette explained how “the spit and the small particles coughed up and sneezed out by consumptives, and by many who do not know that they have consumption, are full of living germs too small to be seen. THESE GERMS ARE THE CAUSE OF CONSUMPTION.” It had tips for how to prevent the spread of consumption, including the following:

• Don’t spit on side-walks – it spreads disease, and it is against the law.
• Don’t spit on the floors of your rooms or hallways.
• Don’t spit on the floor of your shop.
• When you spit, spit in the gutters or into a spittoon.

Billiard room at the Hotel Rathbun, 1910s

That same year, the mayor of Boston issued an order to slow down the spread of consumption in his city. In it, he positively forbade all employees of the city of Boston from spitting upon the floors and required the posting of notices in all public building that read: “Do not spit on the floor, to do so may spread disease.” Employees of the city who suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis were not permitted to use the public spittoons, and had to provide themselves with individual sputum receivers.

Writing room at the Hotel Rathbun, 1910s

Regulations like those implemented in Boston, along with public education about consumption and better treatment options, slowly led to a decline of the disease and less need to publicly expel sputum. The use of chewing tobacco also declined sharply in the early 1900s. Some attributed the drop to the civilizing effect of more women participating in public life. Cigarettes were also growing in popularity as a means to enjoy tobacco, and chewing gum became quite popular in the 1920s, in particular with the younger generation.

Lyceum Cafe, c. 1910

A study done in 1935 at the University of North Carolina showed that about 3.5 percent of the school’s 2,500 students reported chewing tobacco, in contrast to 25 percent of students 25 years earlier. By the end of 1930s, spittoons had virtually disappeared from public spaces. I, for one, am grateful that spittoons are now things of the past, typically only found in attics, antique shops, and museums.

Time Travel: Hello Girls

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

In Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), a character travels back in time to the medieval era. Observing the behavior of damsels in those days, he asserts that “the humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the highest duchess in Arthur’s land.” He’s talking about the women who worked as switchboard operators.  

Operators, known as hello-girls, were an important part of the early telephone business. The technology of transmitting the human voice using telephone wires had been patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Then, to make a phone call, one would lift the receiver which would automatically connect to a switchboard where an operator or hello-girl would answer. The operator would ask which number you wanted and would physically connect the wires. This was called the manual telephone system.

By the end of the 1870s, Chemung County’s first telephone was installed. It was located at Charles Tomlinson’s photography studio on Baldwin Street, and it was soon connected to a similar telephone at the Western Union Telegraph office across the street. The intent was to encourage others to invest in and embrace the new technology.

When Elmira’s first phone book was published in 1880, Tomlinson was not listed. That first book contained 42 subscriber names, their addresses, and phone numbers. Numbers were assigned starting with the number 1. Of the listings, only 4 of these were private residences, including number 29, which belonged to the Langdon mansion, the home of Mark Twain’s in-laws. By the end of that same year Elmira’s phone system had grown to over 100 subscribers. It is not known how many hello-girls were employed.

The job of a hello-girl was a desirable profession open to young women. It offered pay and social status. But on average women stayed in these positions for only three years, so there was a lot of turnover. In larger cities, like New York, businesses attracted applicants by offering amenities like libraries and parlors to lounge in during rest hours, or boat excursions, theater visits, and art museum parties to entertain them. Of course, all of this was under proper supervision. The work they did was critical to the success of the telephone. Sometimes they connected 100 to 225 calls an hour and they were often pushed to handle more.

In response to operator complaints about working conditions, the U.S. Labor Commissioner compiled a report for the Senate in 1910. The report was hundreds of pages long and was not shared with the workers.

The report covered applicants, training, and culture. The majority of hello-girls were unmarried. Of the 6,152 young women who applied to be hello-girls, 2,229 were deemed not eligible because they were too small, too old, unwilling to work on Jewish holidays, not vaccinated, or lacked in personal appearance. That last one is puzzling since the public never saw them, just heard their voices. Hello-girls were required to have a calm manner, be clear-eyed, with a rosy complexion, and have a good appetite. Anyone that met these requirements attended special schools to learn the expected professional protocol. The commissioner found that “the loyalty and esprit de corps among telephone girls is greater than in any other industry in the country.” The report concluded that the hello-girls had nothing to complain about.

As technology changed, the role of the hello-girl changed. Chemung County continued to use the manual telephone system until 1952, when it shifted to the dial system, and all the local hello-girls were let go. Local phone numbers changed to include four digits about this time.

Some things regarding those old telephones do persist. We continue to dial a number when making a call, and we reach someone, which might reflect back to when wires had to be manually connected. Gone are phone booths, phone books and memorizing numbers because they are automatically saved in the phones we carry in our pockets. Today many people making a phone call don’t expect to actually reach a human being, preferring instead to send a text message. Is this a modern telegraph?

Our latest exhibit, Then & Now: How Everyday Objects Have Changed Over Time, includes a variety of telephones from our collection, including one we invite you to dial yourself.  You may not be able to time-travel, but do come see this and other relics from the past.

Don’t Ask AI

 By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 

In the last year, I’ve gotten more than a few requests from researchers to confirm something AI told them. In each case, much of what AI told them was wrong. I’ve also had people ask me for things ChatGPT assured them were in them were in our archives when they very much were not. While AI certainly has its uses, it’s not the best tool for genealogical or historical research.

It’s not surprising that people are turning to AI to help them in their research. The industry is pushing it as the hottest new technology. It has “intelligence” in its name which certainly gives the impression that it knows stuff. The problem is that most commercial AI is not a database. Rather, they are large language models (LLM). Their creators fed them large amounts of text scoured from books, newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Every time an AI chatbot answers a question, it is not retrieving information, but predicting what the likeliest answer is based on whichever texts it has been trained on. Because many historical and genealogical records have not been digitized, they are not part of commercial LLM training data. AI chatbots don’t have the information needed to predict the right answer.

As a human person, when I can’t answer a researcher’s question, I tell them “I don’t know” or “I don’t have that information” and then try to point them in a more useful direction if possible. Commercial AIs like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok don’t do that. They are programed to always give you an answer, even if it isn’t accurate.  For example, when I asked ChatGPT how John W. Jones, local abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor, died, it gave me the correct date (December 26, 1900) but claimed it was in a cave diving incident. AI chatbots are also trained to keep the user happy at all costs. When I pointed out that Jones’ cause of death was wrong, ChatGPT apologized, gushed about how right I was, and offered another, equally wrong, cause of death.  

 

Me, a human person, doing research

So, if AI isn’t the best tool, what is? Actual historical records. These days, a good number of them are even available on-line. Here is a list of my favorite FREE on-line resources:

New York Heritage (https://nyheritage.org/) –FREE digital collections of material from across New York State like yearbooks, city directories, photographs, etc.

NYS Historic Newspapers (http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org) – FREE digital collection of 19^th and 20^th century newspapers from across New York State.

Internet Archive (https://archive.org/) – FREE digital collections of historic books, magazines, film, audio recordings, and archival material on a wide range of topics.

ProQuest (http://www.proquest.com) – digital collections of newspapers and scholarly publications available for FREE to Chemung County residents with your library card.

NOVELny (http://novelnewyork.org) – digital collections of scholarly publications, newspapers, and magazines available for FREE to New York residents with your local library card.

If you can’t find it on-line, you might have to visit a physical repository in person. For official records in Chemung County, that means visiting the Chemung County Clerk’s office for land records; the Chemung County Surrogate’s Court for wills and estates; the Chemung County Office of Vital Records for birth/death records; and various town clerks for marriage records. You might also want to visit the Steele Memorial Library or the Elmira College archives. And, of course, the Chemung County Historical Society. Our research library & archives are open from 1pm to 5pm, Monday through Friday. Admission is FREE for members and students, with a $5 fee for non-members.

Doing your own research, whether in-person or on-line, is harder and more time consuming than asking AI, but it is far more rewarding. Not only is it more likely to get you the correct answer to your question, it will often get you answers to questions you didn’t even know you should ask! Sometimes it won’t though. Sometimes you will have to learn to live with “I don’t know.”

Charles G. Elliott: A Man of War and Roses

by Erin Doane, Senior Curator

Distinguished Service Cross Citation for Charles G. Elliot, January 10, 1919

When my husband and I were planning our wedding, we visited several florists. The first two handed us books and told us to point at the arrangements we liked. The third, a small older gentleman, picked up a pencil and pad of paper, sat down with us, and asked us about ourselves and what we wanted our wedding to be like. He didn’t show us any catalog photos or push particular types of flowers. He wanted to make arrangements that felt personal to us that would make our day special.

Somehow in the course of our conversation, we learned that the florist had served as a corpsman during the landing at Normandy on D-Day. I was struck by the juxtaposition of that horrific, bloody day and the delicate-looking, quiet man who crafted absolutely gorgeous flower arrangements for our wedding. I was reminded of this encounter when I recently “met” another soldier who, after his time in combat, spent his life among flowers – Charles G. Elliott.

Charles G. Elliott, Elmira Star-Gazette, December 24, 1917

Charles was born in 1892 in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Sometime before 1910, he moved to Elmira with his parents Ernest and Dora. His father got a job as a laborer at a greenhouse and young Charles worked there as an apprentice. By 1917, both father and son were florists working for the United States Cut Flower Company in Elmira Heights. The horticultural company came to the Heights in 1903 and built massive greenhouses on its 62-acre site. By 1907, it was one of the largest and most successful plant and flower growing operations in the country.

In July 1917, Charles enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to Company M, 56^th Infantry Regiment, 7^th Infantry Division. The 56^th was formed from the 17^th Infantry Regiment on May 15, 1917 and was organized at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia in June that year. Shortly after enlisting, Charles left his job as a rose grower and was sent to Fort Oglethorpe for basic training. He was deployed to France in 1918. The 56^thwas stationed at a defensive position along the Moselle River. While the regiment saw only minimal direct combat, the soldiers were in no way safe or detached from the violence of war.

Photograph of men at camp during WWI donated to CCHS by Charles Elliott’s estate

On November 5, 1918, near Preny, France, Charles Elliott was on patrol when he and another member of the company were wounded by heavy machine gun fire. He was hit in the thigh by a bullet but was able to retain command of the patrol, take care of the wounded man, and report to the company commander before he was evacuated. For his heroism that day, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross from the United States and the Croix de Guerre with a silver-gilt star from France.

The Distinguished Service Cross is the United States Army’s second highest military decoration after the Medal of Honor. It is awarded to soldiers who display extraordinary heroism in combat against an armed enemy force. Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded to just over 6,000 of the approximately 4.7 million Americans who served in the U.S. military during World War I.

Charles Elliott’s Distinguished Service Cross and citation

The Croix de Guerre was awarded by the French government to French and allied soldiers for acts of heroism involving combat with the enemy. Stars and palms pinned to the ribbon show the level of military command that officially cited the soldier for bravery. Charles’s silver-gilt star indicates he was mentioned in dispatches at a corps level. More than 11,000 Americans were awarded the Croix de Guerre during the war.

Charles Elliott’s Croix de Guerre and citation

Charles spent nearly six weeks in the hospital recovering from the wound he received on November 5. In June 1919, he returned home and went back to work at the United States Cut Flower Company. On January 5, 1921, he married Crete F. Kingsbury. It was a small ceremony at her mother’s home with their immediate relatives in attendance. Four years later, they had a son, George Kingsbury Elliott. Charles continued working at the United States Cut Flower Company for 30 years, becoming foreman in the greenhouse by 1940.

In 1930, The Elmira Floral Products Company was created as a joint venture between the United States Cut Flower Company and Hoffman Nurseries to market products of the two companies. In 1948, the United States Cut Flower Company changed its name to Elmira Floral Products, Inc. and the 44-year-old award-winning floral company was officially no more. Charles then went to work at Hoffman Nurseries and stayed there for seven years before finally retiring from the plant business. 

After many years of cultivating beauty in a turbulent world, Charles Elliott passed away on November 15, 1957.  He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.

Charles Elliott’s headstone in Woodlawn Cemetery, August 13, 2026

Discovered History: Summer Cohesion

 By Susan Zehnder, Education Director

What do clues, white curator gloves, pencils, paper, and objects have in common with eight- and nine-year-olds during the summer? It might sound like a sure recipe for eye rolling, but these materials actually created history detectives out of 128 Summer Cohesion students and their counselors.

This year, students had a chance to sharpen their literacy and drawing skills by examining objects from Chemung’s past. Many are eager to return. Here’s what they did.

Each group’s visit started with a scavenger hunt in the main gallery, where they were given visual clues in the form of a tiny picture. This activity encouraged students to move around the large room as they searched for their item and gave them a chance to see the wide variety of items we have on display. Quite a few students had been to the museum before, but by being asked to look for specific items, they discovered things they hadn’t seen on previous visits. They also had the opportunity to revisit familiar items. This approach kept things interesting for everyone. Our galleries are filled with hundreds of items of all sizes. Objects vary from small military medals to fossilized mammoth teeth and a tusk, and everything is connected to Chemung County’s past. There is always something new to see.

Once students found the item that matched their clue, they had to determine if the item was an artifact or a document and report their discovery. Additionally, they were asked to provide two words to describe the item.  As a result of collecting descriptive words, students saw how a “box” became a “small blue box made of metal and leather, while a “trunk” became a “large, old, decorated box.” Their words were recorded on a large sheet for them to see.

After the hunt, participants gathered in the education room for the next activity. Working with a partner, they received a photograph of an object to draw. Each object was different and it wasn’t always obvious from the photograph what kind of object they were looking at. This helped students focus on the details they saw and not ones they assumed existed. Each pair of students had to look closely at the photograph and draw what they saw.

When students were satisfied that they had drawn the object the way they wanted, they put on white curator gloves. For many this was particularly exciting, because they knew it meant they would be handling the actual objects. They brought their photograph up to match and collect its real object, which they carefully brought back to their table. Taking turns, students compared their objects to their drawings in order to make any additions or changes to their work.

Sometimes making changes to written text is tough for students this age, who often falsely interpret needing to make changes or editing as having failed rather than as receiving the chance to improve their work.  Comparing the photo, their drawing, and the actual objects helped guide the students through the process of editing. Although photographs are helpful, being able to see and handle a real object gave participants an entirely different experience of these historical items. Some students found their objects were a surprise because they were smaller or larger than expected. Others found the object’s color to be different. Holding the objects and feeling how heavy or light they were often changed what students thought the items were used for.

Each pair of students also worked together to write a label for their object. Here, using descriptive words became especially helpful if they weren’t able to identify what it was. Some objects looked familiar and were easier to decipher. A mortar and pestle, for instance, was described as a “food masher.” Other objects were tougher to identify and required some creative thinking. A cast iron bank shaped like a log cabin was labelled as a “house,” and students described a Haversack, similar to those used by soldiers to carry supplies during the Civil War, as a “traveling bag.”

Before they left, students compared their work to a poster with photos and labels of each object.

 We gave everyone the option to take their drawings with them or leave them for display in the museum. You can see some of their work on the wall as you enter the Museum’s Bank Gallery.

Mindful that this is their summer break, and a being a firm believer that kids should be allowed to play, discover, and create, especially in summer, when I heard the comment “this is the coolest thing ever” I felt that these detectives had successfully uncovered a new way to look at history around them, and no eyes rolled!

Up in Smoke: The Southern Tier Sanitary Fair

 By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 

The Southern Tier Sanitary Fair opened on the evening of March 14, 1864 at the newly-constructed First Presbyterian Church. The planning committee included all sorts of important figures like congressman turned soldier Alexander S. Diven, businessman and future Mark Twain father-in-law Jervis Langdon, and Rev. Thomas K. Beecher of the Park Church. The fair was supposed to take place over two weeks with events taking place in several churches and public halls across the city. It was to be the biggest and best Sanitary fair in all of Western New York. Alas, things went horribly, horribly wrong.

The United States Sanitary Commission was created in June 1861 as a charitable organization aimed at protecting the health of Union soldiers. To that end, they inspected and improved military encampments; constructed hospitals and soldiers’ homes; trained nurses; and collected and distributed aid. For more information about the Commission and their activities, check out this blog post: Southern Tier Sanitary Fair and the United States Sanitary Commission.

The first Sanitary Fair was Northwest Sanitary Fair in Chicago from October 27 to November 7, 1863. The fair featured patriotic exhibits, crafts available for purchase, concessions, big ticket auction items, and plenty of spectacle. It was incredibly successful, raising $78,682.89 in just two weeks! Soon, everyone wanted to hold one. It kicked off a wave of similar fairs in cities across the North including Cincinnati, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Baltimore, and, of course, Elmira.

The opening night of the Southern Tier Sanitary Fair featured a concert by Pier’s Brass Band, speeches by dignitaries, and a supper. Over the next several days, fairgoers got to see booths put together by charitable groups and shops from across the Twin Tiers at the Bazaar located in the First Presbyterian Church. There were fancy goods made by ladies from across Steuben, Tioga, Bradford, and Chemung counties, all of it for sale. Located in Holden Hall was the portrait gallery and cabinet of curiosities featuring artifacts from Japan, Europe, the Middle East; a Native American exhibit; taxidermy birds and animals; and captured Confederate military equipment. Concessions were provided at the New England kitchen, located in a small, temporary structure next to the church.

 

Sanitary Fair ticket

Each night the ladies from a particular town would prepare and serve a public supper. The first night, dinner was served by the ladies of Southport, followed the next day by Big Flats, then Horseheads, etc. Waitresses wore special liberty caps and red, white & blue ribbons. We have one of the ribbons at the Chemung County Historical Society, but, sadly, none of the caps. After supper, the evening entertainments would begin. They included a tableau where people acted out famous paintings; concerts; dancing; and a lecture given by Col. A.D. Streight, who had recently escaped from a Confederate prison.  One night’s entertainment was the wedding of Mr. William O. Brown and Miss Josephine Burke performed by Rev. Thomas K. Beecher with the wedding cake sold off at 25 cents per slice. The fair and evening entertainments were very well attended and quite profitable. By day three, they had already brought in $11,191.19. 

 

Ribbon worn by waitresses

Then it all went up in smoke. On the evening of March 18^th, two boys lighting the gas lamps managed to catch the evergreen garlands hanging inside the Presbyterian Church on fire. Attempts to contain the blaze failed and from there it was a mad scramble to evacuate the building. Various individuals were hurt getting people out and three eventually died. Fred Hart and Charles Hazard were attempting to flee together when they were overcome by the smoke. Hazard was pulled to safety by H.S. Brooks (who died several months later from complications due to smoke inhalation) while Fred Hart’s body was eventually found in the wreckage. M.M. Converse tripped while saving a little girl and was so severely burned he died a few days later. The newspaper accounts were filled with the horror of the event coupled with the heroism of those who risked their lives to help others and save the merchandise.

Charles and Robert Hall, Clark Ingraham, Ella Diven, and S.C. Reynolds collectively managed to grab some $300-worth of goods from the Bazaar. Alice Blossom actually rushed back into the fire to get $70 in cash from the ice cream stand. Still, most vendors lost all their wares and the church itself was a total loss. The furniture lent by various Elmira families, all the outer wear in the cloak room, and a number of heirlooms on display in the New England Kitchen were all reduced to ash. The portrait gallery and the cabinet of curiosities in Holden Hall remained intact, but the festive mood was shattered and the rest of the planned events were cancelled. Despite the tragedy, the fair managed to raise $12,000 of the expected $15,000. 

Mourning ribbon from Fred Hart's funeral

 

The Bicentennial Bridge

by Erin Doane, Senior Curator

If someone asked you where the Bicentennial Bridge in Elmira is, could you tell them? Until a short time ago, I couldn’t have. My recent research into how we celebrated the 200^th birthday of the United States 50 years ago led me to this information. On July 17, 1976, the new bridge spanning the Chemung River at Main Street was dedicated. While it was not officially part of the County’s festivities for the momentous year, the bridge was dubbed the Bicentennial Bridge.

The first Main Street bridge was chartered in 1853. The original bridge was replaced in 1873 after suffering from flood and fire damage in the 1860s. Just under 50 years later, in 1921, it was replaced once again. By the early 1960s, the bridge was again showing signs of age. The sidewalks were repaired in 1963 as they were crumbling in several spots and dangerous holes had developed. Deterioration continued into 1968 when major repairs were recommended by a private engineering firm. Some repairs were made and a 5-ton limit on vehicles was put into place.

Main Street bridge, mid-20^th century

The Flood of 1972 further damaged the 51-year-old bridge. The Army Corps of Engineers discovered weaknesses in the southern span of the bridge at that time and repairs were made to shore it up. The bridge reopened but was limited to two lanes of traffic.

View under the Main Street Bridge following the 1972 flood

Despite the repairs, in December 1974, city officials closed the Main Street Bridge as it was deemed unsafe for public use.  The piers on the south end of the bridge appeared in good condition but an inspection crew found serious damage under the floor of the bridge. The concrete had crumbled away allowing the steel supports to rust.

Early the next year, plans were in place to construct an entirely new bridge. Phase one of the project was the demolition of the existing bridge. On October 14, 1975, Dawn Webb, wife of the Elmira building superintendent, got to press the button that blew up the first of four spans of the bridge. Unfortunately, no announcement had been made that the demolition was going to take place, and the city police received over 30 concerned phone calls. No warning had been given to local residents because officials were worried that people would gather to see the demolition and possibly get injured. That was a reasonable concern. Even without official notice, people came out onto nearby rooftops to watch. Some reported bits of rubble falling near them from the explosion. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Concept drawing of the new Main Street bridge, May 8, 1975

City officials promised that the new bridge would be open by Thanksgiving 1976. Through tremendous efforts put forth by contractors and workers at all stages of construction, the bridge opened four months early on July 17, 1976. The entire $3.5 million project was completed within 19 months from initial planning and design through the completion of construction. The new bridge was ceremoniously dubbed the Bicentennial Bridge and Mayor John M. Kennedy Jr. called it an “avenue of unity joining the citizens of Elmira.”

The Bicentennial Bridge right after its opening on, July 17, 1976

The first people over the bridge represented modes of transportation from the city’s past. Teenagers Cindy Dixon of Elmira and Pamela Collins of Wellsburg crossed the bridge from the Southside to the Northside astride Pamela’s horse Lady Shamrock. Daniel J. Bednarek of Elmira and his brother Brian crossed from the Northside to the Southside inside a 1940 Nash.

The Nash and Lady Shamrock passing each other on the Bicentennial Bridge, July 17, 1976

The opening of the Bicentennial Bridge was a momentous event in a celebratory year. Local businesses used the bridge in their advertisements as a location that people readily recognized. Central Radio, for example, was “just over the Bicentennial Bridge.” But the name didn’t stick. After 1980, the “Bicentennial Bridge” no longer appeared in the local newspaper. Everyone seemed to have gone back to simply calling it the Main Street bridge. 50 years later, it’s not surprising if you’re not familiar with Elmira’s Bicentennial Bridge.