#yates cider mill | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yatescountyhistorycenter · 7 months

Text

Bluff Point and Keuka Park: A shared history

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Following my prior article about the shared ZIP code of the hamlets of Keuka Park and Bluff Point in the Town of Jerusalem – and the absence of a post office in Bluff Point where one once stood – I wanted to present the apparently shared, but certainly differing, histories of these two hamlets and their respective post offices.

First, let’s get the lay of the land, so to speak. According to Google Maps (because nobody uses an atlas or a map anymore, he said cynically and wistfully), Keuka Park and Bluff Point are just seven-tenths of a mile apart from each other. Google Maps places the center of Keuka Park at the intersection of Central and Assembly avenues, while the heart of Bluff Point lies along State Route 54A where it meets Assembly Avenue and Kinneys Corners Road. You could drive from one hamlet to the other in two minutes; if you have the gumption, you could walk the route in 14 minutes or bicycle there in 3 minutes.

At first – around the late 18th century or early 19th century, though no specific founding date is given – the whole area was called Fox’s Corners, its center nestled at the intersection of the east and west roads and the road coming from the end of Bluff Point the landmass. Abraham Fox, a hotel landlord, had inaugurated public exhibitions such as athletic sports, horse racing, and general training by the militia in the area. In 1825, two years after Yates County was established, the settlement took on the name Kinney’s Corners for local tavern keeper and tradesman Giles Kinney.

The Bluff Point Post Office opened in either 1849 or 1850, and either Robert Chissom or John H. Bishop was the first postmaster. The post office was initially located in a hotel that burned down on March 16, 1881 when Allen Spooner was the proprietor. It was with the establishment of the post office that the hamlet was given the named also labeled on the promontory that splits Keuka Lake into two branches. A rural route began on October 1, 1901 when most of the county’s rural post offices were discontinued.

The first church in the hamlet was indeed the first church in the Town of Jerusalem, outside of the Public Universal Friend’s home that also served as the meetinghouse for the Society of Universal Friends. Methodist circuit riders first came to the area in 1793, and the first society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1823. The first church building was constructed between 1838 and 1840. A new church was erected in 1896, with the old church moved and relocated as part of the new building.

In the early days of Bluff Point, along with the hotel, the hamlet featured a general store with meeting space on the second floor, saloon, wagon shop, cooper shop, shoe shop, blacksmith shop, cider mills, ashery and distillery, and even a doctor. The post office was moved into W.M. Barrow’s wagon shop, while the hotel’s barns were remodeled into a feed mill. When the wagon shop burned, Barrow bought the feed mill and built a store with a home attached; the post office moved into this building alongside a department store.

Nearby, Keuka Park was a deliberately planned village, not officially incorporated but in the sense of a having a more urban center than being in the rural outskirts. The settlement was conceived in the late 1880s around the same time the idea for Keuka College was being birthed. The Ketchum farm was purchased, college buildings were provided for, and houses were built. Eight hundred lots were laid out on the property that became Keuka Park. “But other than the college development, the village was temporarily a typical nineteenth century hamlet,” states an undated typewritten document in our subject files, likely crafted by former Yates County Historian Frank Swann.

There were a couple of stores in the early days, and in 1891, a stagecoach line was established from Keuka Park to Penn Yan with sizable horse sheds in Keuka Park to accommodate that business. Summer college sessions took place in a build on the assembly grounds that was later moved and became the college basket factory. At this factory, students could earn part of their expenses by operating the Taylor pony basket making machine.

Later, the Penn Yan, Keuka Park, and Branchport trolley line made Keuka Park more accessible. Even later, a road following the line of the trolley from the trolley’s powerhouse to the main Penn Yan road eliminated two hills and decreased the distance to the county seat. Since 1920, Keuka Park residents have been supplied with water from the college’s water system. The Keuka Park Fire Company was organized on March 14, 1928, and the Keuka Park Fire District was organized on January 30, 1941.

While the Bluff Point Post Office close for good in the mid-1980s, its closure was threatened 30 years before when it was one of four fourth-class post offices in Yates County the U.S. Postal Service considered eliminating – the others being Starkey, Gage, and Himrod. A fourth-class post office conducted less than $1,500 worth of business annually, but more than 150 residents signed a petition against discontinuing the post office with the argument that the hamlet’s post office had the potential to grow into a third-class post office. Indeed, the Bluff Point Post Office marked its 103rd year in 1953 with the specter of that year being its last.

“To many of us this post office is part and parcel of a rich historical heritage,” states a newspaper article from the time. “To others, it is a valuable and very efficient postal service. To still others, Bluff Point looms as an undiscovered wonderland, soon to be embellished with new cottages, hard roads and the mecca for tourists from near and far.” The article notes the year of the post office’s opening coincided with the development of the plank road connecting Penn Yan and Branchport via Kinney’s Corners and the establishment of the first railroad out of Penn Yan. Steamboats had first cruised Keuka Lake a few years prior, and two decades before had seen the start of the Crooked Lake Canal. The grape industry contributed to the growth of Bluff Point in the years after 1850.

At the halfway point of the 20th century, the article pointed to more developments that would provide a boon to Bluff Point and thus make a post office in the hamlet a necessity. The Bluff Point Post Office remained open, and in 1974 the post office received a new building after 30 years by that point of resident in a house owned by the Olbrich family. The new building, across the road from the old site, turned out to be a mobile trailer adorned in a Postal Service motif of red, white, and blue. The trailer previously provided shelter to people who lost their homes due to Hurricane Agnes two years before, and now it provided “more space, a modern appearance and better working conditions for the employees,” Postmaster Paul Yarnall said in a newspaper article.

The Keuka Park Post Office opened in 1890 and presumably sprang up alongside the development plans for the hamlet and the college. As the calendar turned from 1945 to 1946, the post office received its own dedicated building after years of mail and postal business being handled in “the store at Keuka Park,” according to a newspaper article. The one-story, 32x24-foot building housed a third-class post office – putting its revenue between $7,000 and $8,000 annually – and contained 200 mailboxes. When it opened, the building served 56 families with balance of the mail being handled for Keuka College.

An article dated April 8, 1954 placed post offices at Keuka Park, Bluff Point, and Starkey on a list for discontinuance but also announced the termination of those plans. Less than 20 years after the new building in Keuka Park opened, another new location was proposed as part of a larger Postal Service plan to lease facilities under private ownership. Keuka College received the contract to build a new post office and lease the building to the Postal Service, showing how the hamlet and the college had grown up together.

The building, where the Keuka Park Post Office remains today, measures 1,972 square feet – nearly tripling the space the post office previously occupied and was situated on the north side of Assembly Avenue, a stone’s throw from the entrance to the college campus. The additional space and more modern equipment were geared toward providing more efficient handling of the mail for a growing population – both permanent residents and college students alike. Of course, as we now know, this post office also handles mail and postal business for residents in Bluff Point and Branchport.

#historyblog #history #museum #archives #american history #us history #local history #newyork #yatescounty #bluffpointny #keukaparkny #keukacollege #hamlet #postoffice #postal service #village

0 notes