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"Why Elmira Was Called The Queen City By Travel Writer William Macleod"

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“Elmira is the Queen City along New York and Erie Railroad, and is a good specimen of the towns that seem to exhale from the American soil …”

This statement was penned by travel writer William MacLeod in 1851 in Harper’s New York and Erie Railroad Guide. It was only two years prior, in 1849, that the railroad had arrived in Elmira.

To promote this brand-new rail line through New York to travelers, Harper’s magazine sent a team to highlight the route, including MacLeod, to report on the sights along the way. MacLeod described Elmira: “… Situated on the north bank of the Chemung, we enter its streets by a covered bridge of wood. The traveler, as he skirts along its suburbs to its busy station in the west end, and then passes to his hotel through those compact streets, crowded with business and intersected by a canal …”

He goes on to explain Elmira’s early history and importance. The first Erie station was described as extensive with an agent’s office, freight houses, and a large engine house with a turn-table. Other local towns mentioned in the Guide are Waverly, Chemung, Wellsburg, Horseheads, Big Flats and Corning.

The craze for railroads had come in the summer of 1831 with the need for a business route through the Southern Tier of New York — the northern route being the Erie Canal. New York City had the New York & Harlem railroad, which opened in stages between 1832 and 1852. At the beginning of 1832, there were only 44 miles of railroad operating upstate, 15 miles of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, and 29 miles of the Ithaca & Owego Railroad.

 

See the rest here.

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