Skunk Hill Ranch Road

by Andrea Renshaw

Andrea is a new Education Volunteer at the Chemung Valley History Museum, coming to us with a history degree from Troy University, and experience in education. She has lived in Chemung County for most of her life and excited to be able to learn more about local history and its connections to our lives today. We are lucky she found us!
 

A piece of local history that seems to be fading is the account of the Skunk Hill Ranch. For many years the name of the road kept its memory alive, but after being renamed, fewer and fewer of our community can tell you where to find Skunk Hill. Skunk Hill Ranch Road (Skunk Hill) has been renamed Harris Hill Road for many years now, and is the steep road connecting County Route 64 in Big Flats with the top of Harris Hill.

Skunk Hill Ranch was born out of a time when fur demands were still high and even the Department of Agriculture was endorsing this get-rich-quick scheme as the next millionaire-making business. In 1896, a prominent Elmiran, Fred LeValley, built his new business venture in nearby Big Flats, far enough away from town not to offend the local residents. On a cinder path on the side hill, the hopeful rancher built his stone and fence enclosures that would become home to thousands of skunks. Pens were first surrounded by ditches then backfilled with stone to keep any of the skunks from burrowing under the fence. It was said that these skunks were quite tame in their pens, but did not always appreciate visitors.  Unfortunately for this local capitalist, it was not the imagined goldmine. In 1904, less than ten years later, the farm was given up. LeValley found that domestic skunks could not produce the lustrous fur quality of their wild counterparts. This issue may have been in part the difficulty of raising skunks on a proper diet in captivity, though it’s said that they were raised on raw meat procured from the local area.  In 1897, Chemung County gained a second skunk ranch when an established farm from Brockton sold to a new owner in Van Etten. This farm seemed to have experienced the same issue with fur quality before its move.

Skunks grown on these ranches were raised for both their fur and their oil, which was used in the cure of several ailments. When Chemung County’s first skunk farms were created, skunk fur was selling for $1 per fur with oil selling at fifty cents an ounce. Beginning around the 1880’s the call for skunk fur began and was predominantly from Europe. Parisian fashion kept up the demand for skunk fur in coats, muffs, hats, and decorative fringe, though for fashion’s sake it may have been sold as Alaskan Sable, American Sable or Black Marten. Well through the twentieth century skunk fur could be seen advertised for its fashionable glossy coat and warmth. As far as fashion went, the best skunk was one with an almost all black coat. Though it is hard to find this trait in the wilderness, many ranches found that breeding this trait was their ticket to success.

Example of skunk coat

Skunk oil turned out to be a more reliable income for farmers. Skunk oil was not, as you may be thinking, their infamous odor-containing spray, but rather fat renderings that were heated into the sought-after product. Skunk oil was sold as a cure-all used for rheumatism, coughs and colds, skin softening, and whatever else one might think to try. Skunk oil could be taken internally or externally depending on the ailment; it was known to cure colds both as a chest rub or ingesting a teaspoonful. It was also used as a regular supplement, much in the way cod liver oil was used.

Skunk Oil

Farms like the Skunk Hill Ranch and the Van Etten farm catered to both of these supplies well into the twentieth century, but unfortunately most farms saw an end much like our local skunk ranch. The land that once held the Skunk Hill Ranch is private property today, but would have sat very near the clearing for the power lines on the right side of the road heading up the hill.

To the Moon

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Fifty years ago, an invention by a man in Horseheads, New York, helped us see our world in a new way. That summer on the evening of July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon’s surface. The world watched as the event was broadcast live using special camera technology developed at Westinghouse Corporation out of Horseheads.

Image of Westinghouse workers from our collection, n.d.

Dr. Gerhard W. Goetze (1930-2007) led the team of scientists as Operations Manager. He had discovered the Secondary Electron Conduction (SEC) effect which captured and amplified individual particles of light, and now his team of scientists adapted the SEC tube to fit NASA’s needs. Under his leadership, they developed the camera technology that allowed NASA to capture images in extreme light and dark conditions and broadcast them back to Earth.

The SEC technology had a variety of applications. It became an important part of night vision sensors, security cameras, and in electron-microscope-based biological tissue studies. It was found critical in work inspecting integrated circuits and helpful in ground-based astronomy work. As for the moon landing, “There would be no other way to get yesterday’s pictures of the moon without this tube” Dr. Goetze was quoted as saying in a Star-Gazette newspaper article published the day after the moon landing.

Gerhard W. Goetze, PhD, (photo source Wikipedia)

Dr. Goetze went on to be awarded a special patent for his work, and the Westinghouse team, along with NASA engineers, won an Emmy for their Apollo broadcasts.

Goetze’s graduate work in atomic physics had first caught the eye of the American government back in the mid-1950s. In 1959, the US Department of the Army sponsored him and he moved from Germany with his young family. He was just twenty-nine years old. His early work at Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse Research and Development laboratories focused on further developing SEC’s application for night vision, a technology supported by the Department of Defense. This went on to be used for police anti-crime measures, and in fighting the war in North Vietnam. By 1964, he had relocated to the Westinghouse Corporation’s Cathode Ray Tube facility in Horseheads and settled his family in Elmira. Under his leadership, the department grew from six members to more than 170 scientists and staff members. Goetze became a US citizen on July 4, 1967 two years before the Apollo moon landing.

In addition to the special patent awarded for the SEC process, Goetz was awarded the Longstreth Medal from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. This prestigious award recognized his invention and the impact it played in ultraviolet astronomical observations, as well as his work on night surveillance technology and broadcast television. In 1966, his SEC tube was named one of the 100 most outstanding scientific and technical achievements by Industrial Research Magazine.

It’s estimated that at least one quarter of the earth’s inhabitants watched the lunar landing and Armstrong’s first footsteps as it happened. The moon mission took over ten years and cost close to 25 billion dollars which would be about 100 billion dollars today. It took over 400,000 people working together to create the parts and needed pieces. The camera technology Goetze and his group developed captured color images on the flights to and from the moon, and the black and white images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they walked on the moon’s surface.

Looking back, the black and white flickering, grainy images don’t seem like very much, but at the time, they surely drew a collective gasp. People and companies were proud to contribute to the space program, and NASA was smart to scatter contracts throughout the nation, awarding companies like Westinghouse with jobs and contracts.

In his free time, Goetz’s passion was gliding, and he spent many weekend hours at the Harris Hill Soaring Club with his family. Another Elmira soaring enthusiast was only 13 years old that summer. Thirty years later, Colonel Eileen Collins went on to be the first female commander of a space shuttle.

 

Colonel Eileen Collins, autographed photo from our collection

But for one warm summer evening in July 1969, the nation and the world watched together and marveled at what humankind had accomplished.

The Moon, taken by Apollo 11 astronauts (source: NASA photo)