LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - JANUARY 12, 2020 by Lynne Belluscio On and off, when I’ve had time, I’ve been trying to figure out when the cement open spandrel bridge over Buttermilk Falls was built. A recent drone video posted by John Kucko of Channel 8 put me back in research mode. I couldn’t find my copy of “Upstate Odyssey – The Lehigh Valley Railroad in Western New York” by Mary Hamilton Dann, so I went to the internet and ordered a new copy. Back in 1997, Mary had come to LeRoy and talked with the Historical Society about her new book and about the role LeRoy played in the Lehigh story. Unfortunately, when I reread her book, I realized that there was no mention of the bridge - - nor much else about North LeRoy. So I ordered three more books about the Lehigh and none of them say anything about the bridge. I pulled our files on LeRoy’s railroads and realized that they were pretty disorganized, so I turned them over to Ann who works in the Gallery. Bless her, because she created order out of chaos, but unfortunately it seems that little attention was given to the Lehigh which was built north of town and passed north of where Crocker’s Ace Hardware is now. I even had the opportunity to buy on Ebay a 1894 map and written description of the land at the west end of the railroad bridge. (What was particularly interesting, is that the land is described as the “Great Falls” tract - - which is the old name of Buttermilk Falls. I had just explained to someone, that the rapids in the village – which disappeared when the dam was built - - was known as “Buttermilk Falls” because the water as it churned over the black shale in the village, looked like buttermilk.) The map also shows North Street Road when it went straight north and crossed the Lehigh tracks at grade, east of where Crockers is now, and connected to Lake Road almost opposite Seldon Road. In fact, if you are driving north on Lake Road, and go past Crockers, you will notice on your right as you come to Seldon Road, a row of newly planted pine trees, which line the old North Street Road. (It’s no longer a public road.) In the meantime, I made contact with the Lehigh Valley Railroad Historical Society in Shortsville. (Hope to attend their meeting in January, weather permitting.) They maintain a museum in a train station in Middlesex. I emailed them to see if they had any information on the cement bridge over Buttermilk Falls and whether they knew about an earlier bridge, because there are early abutments on the north side of the bridge. They emailed back to say no they didn’t have information about the bridge, but they did have a couple of photographs. They also confirmed what I had read, that the open spandrel cement bridge wasn’t developed until the 1920s, and that the early Lehigh Valley Railroad bridges built in 1892, when the railroad came through western New York, were heavy, iron girder type bridges. The photo they sent added some pieces to the puzzle. It was taken in 1925, and the negative is in the Stone Collection at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. If you look closely, in the foreground, you can see the iron girder bridge and on the other side, is the cement, open spandrel bridge. So, the cement bridge was built before 1925. Another photo they sent, which was taken recently, shows the abutment for the iron bridge next to the cement bridge. They also mentioned that they had a copy of my 2011 Pennysaver article about the Lehigh Valley Railroad and its passenger service, the Black Diamond. I had included a photo of the North LeRoy passenger station, and they wanted a copy. But they also shared the story that the passenger station had been moved to North LeRoy in 1894 from Fisherville – known now as Fishers - - near Victor. So that was another piece to the puzzle. The North LeRoy station burned in 1936. The photo of the North LeRoy Station was at Crockers, so I called Dan Diskin and he brought it over. It is a copy that he got from Ed Mooney. So I called Ed, and he said that he didn’t have the original, and he wasn’t too sure where the original was, but he had made a copy of his copy for Crockers. So back to the cement bridge - - - While I was rummaging around looking at photos, I pulled out the 1922 derailment photos of the Black Diamond which occurred at the west end of the bridge. The huge crane that they brought in to pull the passenger cars up from the west embankment, is sitting on the bridge. But which bridge? I’ve put a hand lens on the photos and I’m still not sure which bridge. If it’s the cement bridge, then we know it is at least 3 years earlier than the 1925 photo, but the jury’s out on that so far. There is an outside possibility that there is mention of the bridge in the LeRoy Gazette, and that will be the next step, but it will take some keen reading to find it. It is also possible, that the bridge is included in some of the railroad reports that were published at that time. I am interested in identifying the contractor for the project. Where did the cement come from? Who was the engineer? The Lehigh Valley Railroad records are in several different libraries. There are some at the Hagley Museum, others are with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Some are even at Cornell University. So there’s plenty of research that remains. Never the less, I still think that the Buttermilk Falls bridge is an amazing bridge and I want to know more. North LeRoy and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, One Thing Leads to Another