Hi everyone, here is last week’s local history photos and vintage newspaper blog post—albeit a bit late. My apologies for the delay; an unexpected family matter required me to take several days off on short notice.
And if you take a close look at this week’s Evening Leader, originally published 100 years ago on March 20, 1926 you’ll notice something special—that March 20, 2026, marks the birthday of the City of Corning! (We can celebrate a bit late!)
On page five of the March 20, 1926 edition of The Leader, it is noted that Corning was celebrating the 36th anniversary of its incorporation as a city. Of course, that was a century ago; today we celebrate the 136th anniversary of Corning becoming a city. How cool is that!
Here is a portion of the 1926 Leader article titled Corning Has Anniversary:
“Corning celebrates the 36th anniversary of its cityhood. The bill creating the city became a law and received executive sanction on the 20th of March, 1890. On April 2, 1890 the first election was held with the following result: Mayor, Dr. William E. Gorton; Recorder, D. F. Browne; Chamberlain, L. B. Robinson Overseerer of the Poor Thomas O’Brien; Justices of the peace; George Hitchcock and Thomas Heffernan; Supervisors William A. Foster, Peter Griffin and S. C. Robertson. Aldermen, John Peart and William Hunt first ward; John W. Fedder and William T. Brady second ward; E. Clisdell and William Rubright third ward; John Cogan and James McMahon, firth ward and George Clark and Albert Pritchard, sixth ward.
And here is the whole paper for that date, Saturday, March 20, 1926:
Additionally, while scanning the March/April 1926 Leaders for material for upcoming local history posts, I came across a neat, related article from April 3, 1926. The piece features an interview with Corning’s first mayor, Dr. W. E. Gorton, in which he recounts some of his experiences serving as the city’s inaugural mayor & that too is cool! Check it out!
Here is the article titled Dr. W. E. Gorton, The City’s First Mayor, Recalls Experiences:
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Local History Photo 1: Corning Free Academy Basketball Team (1900)
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Local History Photo 2: Theodore Roosevelt
Our second photo for this week, is really a strip of two photos, and shows Theodore Roosevelt hard at work – when the photo was taken and why it is in our local history archive I don’t know!
However, T.R. was from New York State and was a state assemblyman, New York City Police Commissioner and Secretary of the Navy, before he became the 26th President of the United States & they are neat photos, so I thought I’d share them!
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Local History Photo 3: Market Street, Corning, N.Y.
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Have a great week everyone,
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Local History Online Library Resources:
Heritage Quest: Heritage Quest is the library’s online genealogy service, and it includes access to census records and other research sources; it can be accessed by going to the Online Resources page, on the library’s website, and scrolling down until you see the link for Heritage Quest:
https://www.ssclibrary.org/research/online-resources/
Once you’ve clicked on the Heritage Quest link, you’ll be prompted to login with your card number and PIN. If you have questions about how to use Heritage Quest, please feel free to let me know – my email address is reimerl@stls.org
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Library Local History/Creation Station Resources:
At the library you can scan your photos and slides to create digital family albums and slideshows; and even use one of the Circut machines, and other Creation Station equipment, to help you create a special paper family history album.
Also of note, we have local papers including the Corning Leader, Corning Evening Leader, Corning Journal and Corning Daily Journal, on microfilm from 1840 to the present — so you can visit the library and research local history and your family tree if you wish!
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Local History & Newspaper blog posts are published on Fridays.
Corning History 