Corning, New York - The Crystal City

The Village of Corning joined with Knoxville became the City of Corning in 1890. By that time it had become the busy commercial and industrial center of southeastern Steuben County. It served as the business center for the surrounding rural areas and supported diversified local industries led by the Corning Glass Works, the various cut glass firms, and the Weston Engine Works in nearby Painted Post.

Physically the city had spread out, stretching across the valley on both sides of the river and climbing the slopes of the boarding hills, especially those on the Southside. This growth coupled with the changing lifestyles prompted by industrialization generated a need for constantly improving local transportation facilities.

Several local leaders had proposed the building of an electric street railroad as early as 1873, but nothing came of these plans for over twenty years. Finally, in 1895, the first streetcar left the Northside powerhouse of the new Corning-Painted Post Street Railroad Company bound for Painted Post.

The first railroad in New York began operation just six years after the completion of the Erie Canal and while the Chemung Canal was under construction. One of the investors in the first New York railroad, the Mohawk and Hudson, was Erastus Corning.

Corning became the scene of smaller railroad lines busily weaving webs of tracks connecting the major trunk line to smaller communities. The Blossburgh, Corning & Tioga Railroad was busier than ever during the summer of 1868. The Morris Run Coal Company alone was shipping 800 tons of coal daily by railroad. IN the spring of 1870 the Fall Brook Company began construction of a railroad line from Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, via Stokesdale and Wellsboro to the coal mine at Antrim. In 1871 several Corning citizens subscribed to $20,000 worth of stock to expand the line up to Cowanesque Valley from Lawrenceville to Elkland, Pennsylvania. This expansion, completed in the 1880's, produced the Corning Cowanesque & Antrim Railroad, owned and operated by the Fall Brook Company.

By 1882 another expansion was under way, connecting Stokesdale and Williamsport in Pennsylvania. Many of the 2,500 laborers who built the railroad that summer were Italian immigrants, though a hundred black laborers from Virginia were also on the work force. This expansion was important as it connection Corning to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

The Fall Brook lines were prospering and their expansion continued. In February 1878, plans were made to build a railroad along the Crooked (Keuka) Lake between Penn Yan and Dresden. The Syracuse, Geneva & Corning Railroad Company would operate the line. The Fall Brook system had tremendous importance to Corning. Besides generating commercial activity and employing local men, the company made Corning its center of operations by establishing its office here in 1859 and its machine shops here in 1862.

In April 1900, the New York Central Railroad leased the lines and equipment of the Fall Brook Railroad for 999 years. On May 1, 1899 the Fall Brook Company became the New York Central's Pennsylvania Division. The central also made improvements on the railroad. In 1901 and 1902 it built the five-span truss bridge across the Chemung. In 1902 the double tracking of New York Central reached Corning., and in 1903 the ground was surveyed for a new round house at the Corning shops.

With the presence of lines, like the Erie Railroad (1849) and the Lackawanna Railroads (1880), Corning increasingly was becoming a "railroad Town". The was evident from the number of individual tracks the passed through town. Despite the advantages of the rail industry to the economy, having a railroad cut through the center of town, as did the Erie line, proved both hazardous and deadly. Between 1867 and 1903 Erie trains killed seventeen persons between Painted Post and a point three miles east of Corning.

Corning had become a "railroad town" in the late 1880's. Railroads were everywhere, and they employed hundreds of local men. Local railroad leaders kept Corning in touch with the country's most powerful railroad magnates.

According to the Corning Journal, the railroads' taxable real estate in Corning amounted to $510,310 in 1885, as compared to the $30,000 worth of taxable property of Corning largest industry, the Corning Glass Works. Corning's railroads were a vital part of her life; and during the year ending June 30, 1891, 12,000 trains passed through the community.

Early the next year trolley service reached the Southside. The line was an immediate success, carrying over 250,000 passengers in its first half year of service. The success of the local trolley company led to plans for an interurban trolley line connecting Corning to Elmira and Waverly. Such a line, the Elmira, Corning and Waverly Railway, began operations between Corning and Elmira in 1911.

The new line prospered until the late 1920's when competition from automobiles began to reduce its use and profitability. The line finally discontinued operations in 1930. The era of the trolley in Corning and Painted Post helped span the gap between the 19th and 20th centuries.

It provided mobility, comfort, and depend-ability to local travelers in the decades before the automobile. The trolleys played a vital role in the economic growth of the area by providing cheap, reliable transportation.

They also left nostalgic memories of a bygone era, one filled with the clanking of trolley bells, the joy of excursion trips, and the sight of steel ribbons of tracks stretching along local streets.