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Introduction
Cortland County is rich in history and in educational and natural resources. Its parks and recreational facilities are abundant and relate to all seasons. Some of the richest farmland in the state lies within the borders of the county. The one small city and many towns contribute to a congenial lifestyle where people have the time and inclination to be friendly and good neighbors.
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Geography
Cortland County is at the geographical center of New York State. Originally part of Onondaga County to the north, it was established as a separate county in 1808. The only city, Cortland, is known as the Crown City because it sits in the middle of a circular ridge of steep hillsides. Cortland is located on the Tioughnioga River and on a major Interstate highway -- Route 81.
Primarily rural in nature, Cortland is the northern most Appalachian-designated county. There are 19 political subdivisions including the city of Cortland (city population 18,740), three villages (Homer, Marathon and McGraw), and 15 townships.
(See Map D-1.) Forty percent of the county population lives in the city of Cortland.
In the more remote and less populated townships, agriculture is the prime industry. Most of the county population is concentrated in a relatively small, developed area that includes the city. The population density for the entire county is 98 persons per square mile. This is a bit higher than the average population density ( 85 persons per square mile) in the other 44 counties classified as "rural" by the State Office of Rural Health.
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Historical Perspective on Population Characteristics
The citizens of Cortland County are known for their resilience, sense of justice, and spirit. The community has always pulled together in times of adversity. Numerous historical events give evidence of this.
Local citizens, sympathetic to the plight of escaped slaves, assured their safe passage through the county. Between 1830 and 1860, there were at least 16 sites in Cortland County purported to have been "stations" for the Underground Railroad. The Salisbury-Pratt Homestead on Route 281 and Cold Brook Road is the most notable of the sites and an historical marker designates it.
One of the first colleges in America to admit African-Americans and women was founded in 1848 in McGraw. The Free Central College of McGrawville was also one of the first colleges to have African American instructors. Tragically, many of the students died of a smallpox epidemic. Their graves are in a small cemetery behind McGraw Elementary School.
The congregation of the Unitarian Universalist (U.U.) Church hosted suffragettes, abolitionists, and other social reformers who traveled the lecture circuit in the early 1800s. The words of Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ward Beecher, William Lloyd Garrison, Clara Barton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Lucretia Mott rang through the sanctuary of the U.U. Cobblestone Church.
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Economic Ups and Downs
In 1854, the coming of the railroad was a major economic stimulus to industrial development. Cortland's famous wagons, buggies and sleighs manufactured by the Cortland Wagon Company were shipped as far away as New Zealand. The Wickwire Factory hired many of Cortland's immigrant population and produced items such as woven wire and fences. Despite the hardships of the depression, factories did not close. They simply reduced the workweek. However, after World War II, a long period of decline set in for manufacturing in Cortland.
In the late 1970s, Brockway Trucks, a major employer with a unionized shop was bought out and moved to Pennsylvania. At the same time, veterans were returning to Cortland from the war in Vietnam. They returned to fewer available jobs and a country ambivalent about that war. It was unfortunately a sign of the times that the YWCA opened Aid to Victims of Violence, its program for battered spouses in 1977. Sadly, the bumper sticker, "Will the last person out of Cortland turn off the lights?" captured the local mood of general discouragement.
The downsizing of Smith Corona in the 1980s was followed by the announcement of their plans to move production to Mexico in the early 1990s. They had once been the county's largest employer hiring a quarter of the work force of the county. For generations, families worked on line at "Corona"; it was part of the county fabric. Many other areas were experiencing recessions, downsizing and the loss of their manufacturing base. But Cortland, as one of the poorer counties in the state, seemed to be still reeling from the loss of Brockway Trucks. There were two other crushing blows for Cortland: the State announced that it intended to site a low level nuclear waste dump in beautiful Taylor Valley and Rubbermaid came to the end of its tax free years and made its departure.
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The Tenacity of the Cortland Citizenry
These difficult times notwithstanding, Cortland County citizens struggled in large and small ways to take control. SUNY Cortland and Tompkins-Cortland Community College put major resources together to retrain workers for other occupations as did the County's Employment and Training Office.
Citizens staged an all out fight against the geologically inappropriate location of the dump and they won. On the economic front, the strong efforts of forward thinking people from the Cortland Business Network (CBN), the Industrial Development Agency (IDA), and the Business Development Corporation (BDC) gave Cortland's economy some optimism.
With a sophisticated new marketing campaign, Cortland is on the move to expand old businesses, attract new ones and recruit talented people from near and far. Despite the fact that locally and nationally our manufacturing base has given way to an expansion of the service-sector, Cortland's big excitement right now is actually the expansion of its manufacturing base with Borg Warner, Marietta Packaging and Impact Sports Equipment. Cortland's marketing plan calls for the pursuit of emerging industries such as high-tech manufacturing, telecommunications and e-commerce. Agriculture and dairy farming clearly remain as mainstay activities in rural Cortland.
Two exciting results of the marketing campaign have occurred in 2002. Site Selection Magazine named Cortland County as one of the top 50 small cities for corporate facilities to locate. This ranking was based on “quality of life, economic vitality, sense of community, perspective on economic development and strategy for attracting knowledge-based businesses or high tech manufacturing with low environmental impact,” according to a release from the Business Development Corporation.
Cortland was also named as a reasonably priced community for the location of a call center. This industry, which is the base operation to manage toll-free telephone help lines and hotel reservations is the fastest growing in the country. The Boyd Company of Princeton N.J. did the survey of 64 cities. They noted that “the cost of locating a call center can be a barometer of an area’s overall cost structure for new corporate white collar investment.”
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The Strengths of the Community:
Hospital, Colleges, Newspaper, and the People
Despite the hardships of the past years, the Cortland community is rallying. Some of the mainstay institutions like the colleges, the hospital, and the daily newspaper have all provided a degree of continuity and stability for the community.
The State University of New York College at Cortland (SUNY Cortland) has always been valued for the great number of teachers it graduates and for its role in the cultural life of the community. With Smith-Corona's exit, the college is now the county's largest employer. More importantly, it has become a major partner in the county's economic development. In 1999, SUNY Cortland won a 3-year Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) planning grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Its purpose is to strengthen and formalize an ongoing partnership among SUNY Cortland, Tompkins Cortland Community College and the Cortland community, and to foster economic growth.
Locally owned and operated community hospitals are rarities these days, particularly in small counties. Cortland is fortunate to have the Cortland Memorial Hospital. Locally owned and operated newspapers are also rarities; the Cortland Standard has published independently in Cortland since 1867 and from the same, now-historic building since 1883. The newspaper became a daily publication in 1892 and remains so today. Another Cortland mainstay, the J. M. Murray Center, has long offered a sheltered workshop and many services for Cortland's disabled population.
The difficulties of the previous decades have forged a more dogged determination among Cortland County citizens to succeed. Below are several examples of this determination.
- Major grassroots organizing in the 1990s was responsible for warding off the placement of the nuclear waste dump in Taylor Valley.
- In 1990, members of the community set out to reduce a very high rate of teen pregnancy. The ZAP (or Zero Adolescent Pregnancy) program involved the entire community - schools, social service agencies, parents, teens, faith based institutions, and businesses - in reducing the number of teen pregnancies by 46% over a period of 10 years. This program was not only a source of local pride, it received national recognition as well.
- The enthusiasm and involvement of the community in the proposed development of a Tioughnioga River Trail holds great promise for the county's tourism and recreational interests.
- Achievements relating to economic development have brought a new spirit to Cortland. More than $60 million in announced new private sector capital investment have been made for major projects in the manufacturing and general business sectors, primarily Borg Warner and Impact Sports. Six million in federal and state dollars were granted for Cortland business and workforce development and the state has invested $2 million in Cortland farmland protection.
- After nearly five years of groundwork, Cortland County was designated an Empire Zone in June of 2001. This state program provides tax incentives for businesses to remain in the county and for new ones to locate here. The Marietta Corporation's expansion move to the old Rubbermaid plant was part of the job expansion and economic growth spurred by this designation. Photon Vision Systems, the new high technology park on Rt. 281 across from Homer High School will benefit as part of the Empire Zone. So will Impact Sports, Borg Warner, Wetstone, Intertek Testing Services, Graphics Plus Printing, Suit-Kote and others.
- In Cortland County, the best things in life are free. Here are just a few: the musical concerts in the parks and on the village greens, the cross country skiing in beautiful state lands, the Computer Resource Centers at the J.M. Murray Center and Cortland Jr./Sr. High School, a tube ride down Beaudry Hill in the winter, and an educational walk through Lime Hollow Center for Environmental Culture.
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