Fulton's First Airport

Most of us know that east of our city, on Route 176, the Oswego County Airport is in operation. It’s been a close neighbor of Fulton since the World War II era. But planes had been flying over our homes even earlier than that, and they were taking off and landing right inside our city limits. Yes, at one time, Fulton had its own airport.

A mere two decades after the Wright Brothers proved that people could fly, Fulton began inviting aviators to our city. By the mid-1920s, airplanes were starting to be seen as more than a novelty and were considered a step up from an automobile or railcar. And like cars needed driveways and trains required stations, airplanes had to have someplace to touch down after their sky travel. They needed a landing strip.

In Fulton, the first location being considered for an airport centered on the area we know as Recreation Park. Already cleared for large group gatherings and with Lake Neatahwanta as its nearest neighbor, the park offered plenty of space for takeoffs and landings. But Fulton’s mayor at the time, John Stevenson, wanted to keep the area an outdoor haven for citizens. Those interested in providing a home for airplanes were sent to look elsewhere.

By 1927, aerial enthusiasts found what they were looking for. A few tenths of a mile north of Recreation Park, still bordering Neatahwanta, was an area known as Riverside Park. A prominent Fulton family, the Cases, owned the property and struck a deal to develop a private airport with businessmen Charles Chesbro and Leon and Henry Holly. Their business manager, Bert Quinn, announced a contract with Syracuse’s Curtiss Flying Service, which would use the property as a destination for their planes.

Soon, Fultonians were being entertained by the sights and sounds of air travel…at least when the planes cooperated. A newspaper report from 1929 told of pilot Leonard Cramer, of Syracuse, who had a near fatality when his engine died while circling the Fulton airstrip. Cramer must have caught the wind just right, luckily enabling him to land with only slight damages. Watching airplanes was exciting for city residents, but the financial constraints of owning an airport proved too much for the Fulton businessmen. They asked the city to take it over, suggesting they lease it to the U.S. government for military use. Chesbro and the Holly brothers only asked that they could continue using the facility for commercial use.

Negotiations for the takeover began in 1931. The Fulton Patriot described on a meeting held at Minetto’s DuBois Hotel that included Fulton Mayor C.R. Baldwin, city aldermen, United States officials and the airport’s owners. Negotiations carried on for years, until finally, in 1935, an agreement was reached.

To celebrate the airport’s reopening, city officials decided to tie it into a celebration of the town of Fulton’s centennial. What better way to honor Fulton history than with breathtaking displays of aviation prowess. U.S. government officials formally dedicated the airport, but the real stars of the event were airplanes. Large crowds gathered and imagined what it would be like to fly. They didn’t have to wait long to find out.

A 1936 Fulton Patriot advertisement offered rides in a 16-passenger Tri-Motor plane. For one dollar folks could enjoy a 12-mile tour of the prettiest views around Fulton. For a slightly extra charge, during late August and early September passengers could head over to Syracuse and view the entire New York State Fair better than on any Ferris wheel.

More plane rides meant more accidents and Fulton’s airport saw their share of tragedy. The Syracuse-American reported on pilot Leonard Cramer and his two passengers, Fultonians Eileen Scanlon, age 15, and John Lazo, who narrowly escaped death when Cramer lost control of his plane while performing aerobatic stunts over our airport. Several hundred people witnessed the plane crash, which descended at such velocity that it buried its nose and flipped over on its back. Miraculously, the three suffered only minor injuries.

Fultonian Mary Jasak was not as lucky when she fell 2,500 feet to her death after her parachute failed to open, in 1933. Nearly 2,000 people had gathered to watch the parachute display. Thankfully, other Fulton Airport visitors came away with more pleasant memories, like the annual events held by the Fulton Prop Twisters, a model airplane club. Sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, club members competed to determine whose model could fly the greatest distance or height. There were categories for gas-powered planes and the more traditional rubber band-driven; in later years, planes controlled by radio were also allowed.

Spectators loved rubber band plane contests, but those races lasted less than 60 seconds. In 1940, however, youngster George Pringle dazzled the crowd when rubber bands sent his plane into a gust of wind, moving it far beyond the airport. Viewers lost sight of George’s plane after 13 minutes and 48 seconds, and he had a heck of a time recouping his award-winning model. It was finally located over a mile away.

As was the city’s original intent, the airport was used by the U.S. Army for training. In 1937, The Palladium-Times covered the 62nd Regiment from Fort Totten’s arrival at the Fulton Airport for a two-week training at Fort Ontario. Two planes from the airport would fly over Lake Ontario pulling targets for the Regimen to shoot at. Programs went so well that, by 1940, Fulton was in discussions with government officials to make our airport an Army base.

As U.S. involvement with World War II escalated, Army strategists determined that Fulton’s first airport was too small for their needs. In 1942, after years of rumors, it was confirmed that a new location had been selected for an auxiliary Army airfield and, in 1946, our city had created the Fulton Municipal Airport Commission. Thus began the history of today’s Oswego County Airport, which we’ll explore in a future column.

Airplanes like this Tri-Motor model flew over the city of Fulton’s own airport beginning in the 1920s.

Joe Vescio's "Good Old Days"

It’s always a pleasure to talk with someone about their Fulton memories or to read the recollections of a lifelong Fultonian. Aside from offering new details about our city, their memories often rekindle mine. That’s what happened when I read Joe Vescio’s collection of stories, which he titled “The Good Old Days.” Among his favorite memories were those about food. I couldn’t agree more.

Joe grew up in Fulton as part of a large Italian family of sharecroppers, and when it came to food his family was a lot like mine. If it wasn’t somebody’s birthday or First Communion or wedding, all we needed to celebrate was a couple pounds of pasta and a pot of simmering spaghetti sauce. Sure, we cousins played backyard ball or explored the woods behind our family homes, but what I most remember were the delicious meals that filled our hungry bellies.

Both of my grandmothers learned how to create mouth-watering feasts growing up in Italy. By the time they immigrated to America, when they were still quite young, both knew just about everything food-related, including how to cook a chicken. I’m not talking about a plastic-wrapped bird from the grocery store. Our poultry meals came straight from the chicken coop, as Joe recalled with his good sense of humor.

“When we wanted to prepare a chicken for dinner, the first thing we had to do was wring its neck. One small jerk from a big jerk. Then we let it hang head down for an hour or so, to let the blood drain.”

Not the prettiest image, I know, but Joe’s family knew what they were doing.

“In the meantime, the pan of hot water had been boiling on the stove. The next move was to pluck the chicken. This was a work of art…and the soft down was dried and saved for later use to stuff pillows. The head, minus the beak, was a delicacy, along with the feet, which were parboiled.

“The toenails and the hard scales were removed, then the casings were cleaned with the chicken feathers. Casings were soaked in salt water and rinsed well. These would be cooked with the gizzard and livers, and either put into a sauce for macaroni or for homemade soup.”

Joe’s memory reminds me of a comment my mother often made about her mother. “She could debone a chicken, stuff it and put it back together like it was all intact. We’d show up at the table to find a perfectly-shaped chicken, cooked to a golden brown.”

Adding flavor to those delicious meals were ingredients from vegetable gardens. Both of my grandmothers had large gardens, and because I grew up next door to one set of grandparents, I learned a lot about raising plants; it’s where I discovered my love of digging in the soil. It looks like Joe was paying attention, too.

“My father had his own version of a rototiller: 3 or 4 kids taking turns with a garden fork or spade. Then we would plant pole beans, sweet peppers, tomatoes and hot peppers. Everything had to be staked and tied to get the most out of the garden.”

Like Joe’s family, my grandmothers were natural-born recyclers. Nothing was discarded, especially when it came to food. “Beans were eaten green, then dried and eaten, with pasta fagoli,” Joe explained. “Tomatoes were eaten when red, and what wasn’t eaten was processed into canned tomatoes or sauce. Green tomatoes were pickled in the crock; hot and sweet peppers were also eaten fresh or processed in jars or in a crock.”

Even non-edible vegetation had a purpose in Joe’s family. “All the leftover foliage from beans, peppers and tomatoes were stacked against the cellar wall. They were held in place with the poles and stakes to keep the winter cold out. We didn’t have freezers,[so we] had to bury carrots, celery and cabbage in the garden, and many a time in winter, we had to shovel snow and uncover it to get to the food.”

Joe’s stories of taking his lunch to school got my mouth watering. “We’d have a half loaf of Italian bread, cut in half, with fried potatoes and a little sprinkle of hot pepper on top. We never had wax paper in those days, but we did have plenty of newspaper that we used to wrap our lunch. We’d tie it with leftover string from the butcher. When I told kids that I only had a sandwich for lunch, they’d feel sorry for me until they saw its size.”

Joe’s unique lunch was also good for bartering. He liked swapping his one-of-a-kind sandwich for something we consider commonplace today. “[My friend], Art Fones, had peanut butter and jam sandwiches on American bread,” Joe recalled. “Those made it seem like I was eating cake, which was a rarity in our house.”

Desserts were scarce in my home, too, but you could make your own treat if you knew where to look, like Joe did during Fulton’s long winters. “First thing you had to do, immediately after a snowstorm, was to look for clean fresh snow, making sure that were no yellow spots. We never had soda or anything like that, but we did have black coffee, so we would sweeten the coffee and pour it on the pan of snow to make it look like slush.”

Joe wrote many other memories for us to “feast on” and I’ll be covering them in a future blog. But, for now, the next time I sit down to a meal of homemade chicken soup with a side of crusty Italian bread, I’ll be sending out thanks to my family for giving me such rich food memories. Then I’ll thank Joe Vescio for sharing his with us.

Joe Vescio (top row, far right), shown with his brothers, wrote his memories of growing up in Fulton, including how his parents provided their family with plenty of food.

Fulton's First Telephone Company

You’re probably reading this at home, where we’ve all been spending a lot of time lately. Seeing family and friends has become a rarity, and that can leave us feeling lonely. Thankfully, our telephones help keep us connected, and perhaps it’s more than a coincidence that just before the coronavirus hit, I’d been researching the history of Fulton’s telephone service. Here’s what I found out, starting with a little history of my family’s telephone.

My earliest memory of a telephone was the one that hung in our family kitchen. This was the early 1960s, and our family home, situated on a country road, had phone service through what was called a party line. I’m not sure sharing a telephone wire with half a dozen neighbors should have been called a party, but that’s how it worked.

Phone calls back then were limited to whatever business my parents had: scheduling a doctor’s appointment, figuring out carpool needs, checking on our grandmother’s health. The phone wasn’t used for chitchat because our neighbors would be setting up similar appointments. In my family, having a telephone was considered our good fortune, but here in Fulton, we owe thanks to a man named Le Roy Owens.

In her essay “A Telephone Pioneer,” Fulton historian Grace Lynch credited Owens as the person who “was in charge of the construction of the Oswego County Independent Telephone system,” she noted, “and served many years as its manager.”

Owens was born in Utica, New York, and though his first job involved “electrifying a railroad between Little Falls and Utica,” he turned his attention to telephones when he went to work for Bell. His job expanded beyond Utica, and while he was building toll lines in Upstate New York, he met M.S. Powell, who Lynch described as a promoter.

“Powell [would] size up situations with money-making prospects and organizing companies. [He] sought out Mr. Owens and offered him a job building a telephone system in Fulton. Never having heard of such a place, he thought Powell was talking about the Fulton chain of Adirondack lakes and asked how the promoter expected to make any money in that remote mountain area.”

Powell corrected Owens’ misconception, describing Fulton in 1906 as an “up and coming manufacturing city between Syracuse and Oswego with a population of about 12,000.” There were already two telephone companies—Bell and Rochester Telephone—with franchises to operate in Fulton, but they were barely in use. In fact, a single switchboard handled all toll calls. It was staffed by two women, Nell Brannan and Kitty Smith, and Lynch quoted Smith as remembering that “in the periods when no calls came in, Miss Brannan, who was an accomplished seamstress, taught me to sew.”

Nevertheless, Powell combined the two companies and convinced Owens to join him in expanding Fulton’s telephone service. Owens took the advice of businessman Louis W. Emerick, who suggested he open the company in a new building that would have a bank on its ground floor. Owens agreed and installed switchboards three flights up.

Over the years, a number of Fulton women worked those switchboards, and through the Fulton Library’s Memoir Project, two of their stories have been preserved. When Mary Meyer was 16 years old, she started working for the Oswego County Telephone Company. It was 1941 and here’s how Mary remembered her new job:

“The first time I saw the switchboard with the blinking lights I wondered what I had gotten myself into. But after sitting next to one of the operators—there were five of us on per shift—and watching, and then having her explain, I got my own head set and plugged it in. When a call came, a light would come on the switchboard and I plugged in the first jack to that light. Then I plugged the second jack into the number they were calling.”

Jerry Hogan Kasperek recalled joining the phone company a little later in its history, “when they were getting ready to go to the dial tone. This was a whole new era and it was exciting. People would call up and ask for a telephone and I could tell them yes after they’d waited for years and years. Previous to that, it was hard to get a telephone because they only had limited amounts of poles and lines.”

Erecting those towering poles, which we now take for granted, was a major accomplishment in the telephone industry. “No telephone poles were set on the streets in the downtown area,” Grace Lynch noted. “A pole in back of the office on the river bank took care of the buildings along the west side of [South] First Street. Another planted inside the ‘Dizzy Block’ supplied wires to the stores around it, while another pole back of the Clark House [Fulton’s major hotel] took care of that area.”

Beyond downtown Fulton, setting poles was an even bigger challenge. For that, Owens relied on Anthony Dean, who operated a farm on the East River Road. “He had a horse and a cutter,” Lynch explained. “He would take Mr. Owens from farmer to farmer, bargaining for poles from their woodlots. Farmers would cut, trim and peel the trees and haul them to Fulton with teams and bobsleds.”

Pole by pole, Owens built the telephone system that still serves Fulton and the surrounding area. By the time he died, in 1970, Lynch noted that “Owens was being heralded as a man who enjoyed the liking and respect of everyone who ever had the good fortune to work with him.”

Of course, by then, most people had traded their party lines for a private line. Gone are the days when my family waited our turn to make a phone call. The next time we speed dial a friend as if it were second nature, let’s pause and remember Le Roy Owens, who got the whole conversation started.

We’ve come so far with our telephones, haven’t we?