From luring new business and remembering the fallen to readying for planting, from a new chapter for dozens of college graduates and planning for a blast from the past, here’s a look back on the week that was 125, 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago in this edition of Turning Back the Clock.
1900
June 6 — Franklinville officials are trying to convince the Ontario Knife Company in Cadiz to relocate to the village. The effort was triggered by comments from company officials contemplating moving to a better location. It has been years since an attempt has been made to have any outside enterprise locate here, and the town is waking up to the fact that some inducement must be made to have the place grow. The company would make the move, and operate into 2023 before being closed and sold.
June 8 — The street fair in Olean will include a large python and a few other reptiles to be turned over to a snake eater named Bosco. The snake is 20 feet in length and weighs a trifle over 100 pounds. The snake eating will be one of the strong features of the street fair exhibit next week.
1925
June 2 — A large audience of locals gathered in 100 degree heat to pay their full measure of devotion at Mount View Cemetery to those who gave their lives in the nation’s wars. A parade through the principal streets of the city included veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War and the World War were represented. The Grand Army of the Republic led the memorial service at the cemetery, assisted by members of the Spanish War veterans and the Olean American Legion.
June 6 — Two Olean brothers — Michael Barry, 65, and George, 55 — died in a seepage oil well on the 1400 block of Buffalo Street, having succumbed to gas fumes. George Robertson of Washington Street, who attempted to rescue the brothers, was also overcome. He was rescued by members of Chemical No. 1, who responded to a call sent to police headquarters. The Barry brothers had been producing about 30 barrels of oil a day from their string of seepage wells on the property. They were attempting to repair a pump, and firefighters reported it took significant effort to recover the bodies.
1950
June 2 — In a marathon 3 1/2-hour game, the Olean Oilers minor league baseball team outslugged the visiting Hornell Dodgers, 16 hits to 14, but came up short in runs in the 13-10 tilt. Three homers by the Dodgers put the visitors over the home team. Oilers starting pitcher Tom Heys lasted less than two innings before allowing seven runs — four of which had been among his five walks. Oilers slugging was poorly timed, too, with the team leaving the bases loaded at the end of three innings.
June 3 — Local farmers are out in force planting their fields across the region. While some like Walter Harvey on the Larabee-Port Allegany highway still use horsepower to run plows and manure spreaders, others like those on the Martin farm on the Haskell use machine power — in this case fully-mechanized potato seeders. Some fields that have been unused — such as one on the G.L. Carlson farm at Turtlepoint — are being reconditioned for cultivation. Manufactured fertilizer is also becoming more important, such as on the Cole farm in Cuba where bags of fertilizer are loaded into machines by hand to be spread before seeding grain crops.
1975
June 4 — The Allegany County Jail is being demolished this week, clearing the way for the $3 million four-story annex to the Belmont courthouse. No one is exactly sure how old the jail was, but county Historian William Greene said the back section was probably erected in 1895. That section — which houses the cells — will remain until the new jail is completed on the top floor of the new building. The county’s 17 inmates are now in the Steuben County jail in Bath while the two-week demolition is completed, Sheriff Richard Burdick said, and a temporary kitchen is being built to feed the inmates when they return.
June 6 — A pair of graduations marked the next stage of life for dozens. At Olean Business Institute, 74 received their degrees and certificates for coursework. Buffalo Evening News columnist Bob Curran served as the keynote speaker at the Castle in the 14th annual commencement. “You’re going to run into people who’ll tell you it won’t work, it won’t happen,” he said, but “the football takes funny bounces. Things hoped for, worked for, even positive but unexpected things, have a way of coming to be but by circuitous routes.” Eight more graduated at the Holiday Inn, recipients of associate degrees from the Olean Extension of Alfred State College. Graduating with honors were Theodore Baker of Salamanca and future state Sen. Patricia McGee of Franklinville. McGee also received the Rubber Ducky award, given each year to the class member who has done most for the class and school.
2000
June 5 — Bradford Central Christian High School sent off its final class of 14 graduates this weekend. Telling her fellow grads not to look back with anger, tears or sadness, Valedictorian Sonya Pyle asked them to remember that the school went down fighting. After news the campus would close due to low enrollment and financial problems, “eventually the awakening came upon us and we realized we were the lucky ones,” she said, adding students stopped blaming themselves for the closure when they realized they were the ones who had kept it alive. The school opened in 1962, one of five regional Catholic high schools built in a five-year period. It later became the new home of St. Bernard Elementary School. The building was demolished in November 2023 to make room for an expansion of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
June 7 — In a preview of things to come, History Channel Great Race founder Tom McRea parked his 1934 “rocket car” on North Union Street and got the same head turns, waves and horn honks he receives everywhere he goes. Olean is one of 13 overnight stops planned in the coming weeks for the Great Race, an endurance test of pre-1959 vehicles on a 4,000-mile, coast-to-coast road trip. The race begins in a few days in Boston and finishes two weeks later in Sacramento. “The cars are just an instrument to get people together and get them talking,” McRea said. “We’re in front of our computer screens all day or in our cars with the windows rolled up. The race is an opportunity for everyone to get caught up in this great adventure and come out and have some fun.”
