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CORRY The City Of Stumps

In 1858 the first train chugged into southern Erie County to a place in
Wayne Township where the land was level.  It was the Sunbury & Erie RR
(later the Philadelphia & Erie RR, now the Allegheny RR) and came west from
Warren County. By 1861 the S & E  RR was all the way to its destination in
Erie and new tracks were laid for the Atlantic & Great Western RR, which
came from the southwest.  Because the surrounding land was level, the second
set of tracks crossed the first. Soon one building was located there, a
triangular ticket office between the two sets of tracks.  The stop was
called Corry, a misspelling of the name of a local settler, Hiram Cory.

The tracks were of different gauges, making it necessary for each line to
stop at that point when transferring  freight and passengers.  The S & E
tracks were four feet eight inches apart, and the A & GW tracks were six
feet apart.  Corry became a loading center for the two lines.

Several miles south of the Wayne Township tracks, in 1859 near a settlement
called Titusville, Col. Edwin Drake drilled successfully for oil and a whole
new industry was born. All kinds of oil-related businesses sprang up,
including transporting the oil out.  At first teamsters hauled the oil, then
in 1862 the Oil Creek RR  was laid between Corry and Titusville.  This line
had three rails, to accommodate both sets of gauges at Corry. The Corry
crossroads became a boomtown.  The next year, 1863, the growing dirt-street
town incorporated as a borough.

Once out of the ground, oil must be refined for use.  An extremely
successful refinery was the Downer Oil Works in Corry.  The company chemist
developed a distillation process that spearheaded the way and oil soon
reached the price of $12.00 to $14.00 a barrel.  Businessman George
Washington Newton Yost arrived in the area in 1864 and invested.  He quickly
became the largest exporter of oil in the world.  About 1865 John D.
Rockefeller of Cleveland became involved which led to the formation of the
Standard Oil Company.  In 1866 the borough of Corry incorporated as a city.

After the Civil War there was a slow-down in demand for oil and prices
dropped considerably. The investors in Corry began to look for other
businesses to develop.  With transportation to a wide array of markets,
Corry continued to be a favorable location. G. W. N. Yost, for example,
organized the Corry Machine Company in 1868.  It eventually evolved into the
Climax Mfg. Co., which built locomotives for the lumber industry.  Another
of his interests was a typewriting machine.  He was first involved with the
Remington, then another called the Caligraph. Business schools started up to
teach the technique of using the machines. Other businesses such as the
Corry Wooden Ware Mfg. Co. began making wooden pails and tubs in 1867.  The
business grew to fill a building that covered 17,000 square feet.

A serious slowdown in the economy occurred in 1873, but within a few years
businesses were being developed again. In 1877 a plant was erected to build
steam-drilling engines for those nearby oil fields still in operation.  It
was called the Ajax Plant and continues today as Cooper Industries Inc.,
Energy Services Group.  In a business that began by making baby jumpers in
1883, Raymond Manufacturing Company grew in size and scope.  When springs
were no longer available, the company made its own. Some were sold to the
Wright Brothers who were working on making airplanes in Dayton, Ohio.
Raymond Mfg.  evolved to become the present-day Associated Spring-Barnes
Group, Inc., still operating in Corry.  Corry had its own medicine man, too,
when Col. T. A. Edwards (who had circus experience) and Donald McKay (a
western trapper and trader) brought the Oregon Indian Medicine Company to
town.  Soon, traveling medicine shows were sent out with the products being
made in Corry.  Their Ka-Ton-Ka, the principal cure-all, was sold for more
than 50 years out of Corry, ending in 1941, after the death of the final
owners.

Other aspects of life in Corry were developing at the same pace. Housing
seemed to go up overnight in what had been a woods.  Trees were cut and
there was no time to clear out the stumps before a building was up.  The
town became known as the "City of Stumps."  A tremendous number of secret
societies formed, newspapers came and went, schools were built, a hospital
was incorporated, two opera houses were built and Corry even had its own
opera star, Inez Lord Mecusker. She was billed as "the American Cantatrice"
and toured the nation, even singing for a season with John Philip Sousa and
band.  For many years a large fairgrounds was operated and owned by the
Corry Fair and Driving Park Association

With the turn of the century, still more businesses began operation.  The
Nubone Corset Company started in 1910 and did a fantastic business until
corsets went out of fashion.  Standard Turnbuckle opened before World War I
and evolved into Aero Supply.  The plant went into wartime production during
the 1940s and it was stated that Aero Supply parts could be found on every
plane in the air on the allied side.    In 1919 David Hillstrom purchased a
building and property in Corry and formed the Corry Jamestown Corporation,
making metal products including furniture.   It conducted a successful
business with a huge plant until closing in 1993.  This year (2001) Erie
Plastics, which began in Corry about 1960 as Erie County Plastics, will move
into the former Corry Jamestown plant and is expected to be the largest
employer in Corry. It s former site will become an incubator for small
businesses.

In 1940 a native of Corry, Glenn C. Mead, donated land for a recreational
park and Mead Park had its start.  Today it is the scene of a children's
fishing pond (Alice Lake), an ice skating rink, pavilions, playgrounds,
walkways, parking area, and more.  In 1959 a group of citizens located an
old Climax locomotive and brought it to Corry.  With fundraisers and
volunteer help, a building was erected around it at Mead Park in 1967.  That
building has had four additions and is the home of the Corry Area Historical
Society, organized in 1961.  The museum tells the story of Corry very well.
Its fantastic beginnings, its growth, the hard times and the current
revitalization of the city, its cultural and educational opportunities, the
oil industry, and its myriad of businesses.

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