New York Trivia & Tidbits - Page 15

Looking for New York trivia? Try our list New York little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Born near Albany, Leland Stanford (1824-1893) founded the first transcontinental railroad and became governor of California. He also founded Stanford University (1891).

first appeared: 12/2/2001

Cattaraugus County got its name from a Seneca Indian word meaning “bad smelling banks,” referring to the odor produced by natural gas leaking from rock seams.

first appeared: 11/25/2001

The world’s largest stained-glass window is at Kennedy International Airport in the American Airlines terminal building. It measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high.

first appeared: 11/18/2001

Working in the Corning Glass Works in Corning (pop. 10,842), Jesse Littletown developed Pyrex. He overcame objections to cooking in glass by baking a chocolate cake in a glass container he developed and serving it in the laboratory. His fellow workers pronounced it delicious, and by 1916 Corning was marketing Pyrex dishes.

first appeared: 11/11/2001

Journalist Arthur Wayne, born in Liverpool, England, invented the crossword puzzle. His first crossword appeared in the Sunday edition of The New York World on Dec. 21, 1913.

first appeared: 11/4/2001

Lake Erie’s Barcelona Harbor near Westfield (pop. 3,481) is home to the landmark Barcelona Lighthouse—the first to be lighted by natural gas when constructed in 1830.

first appeared: 10/28/2001

The finale of the 1931 movie Frankenstein took place at a windmill, film director Robert Florey said, because he lived above a Van De Kamp’s bakery in New York City, and the chain’s logo was a windmill.

first appeared: 10/21/2001

The town of Hamilton (pop. 5,733) is named in honor of political leader Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), the only member of the New York delegation who signed the original U.S. Constitution in 1787, prior to ratification the following year.

first appeared: 10/14/2001

In 1912, New York established the position of forest ranger, a group whose primary role was to prevent forest fires. That development of America’s first forest ranger force is credited to Col. William Freeman Cox, New York’s first Superintendent of Forests.

first appeared: 10/7/2001

About one-third of all the military engagements of the American Revolutionary War took place in New York state, including the key defeat of the British at Saratoga Springs.

first appeared: 9/30/2001

Emily Post, originally from Tuxedo Park, N.Y., (pop. 731) wrote her famous book on etiquette in 1922 after becoming impatient with similar books she felt were snobbish. By 1945, her no-nonsense, lighthearted, egalitarian book on manners had sold 660,000 copies.

first appeared: 9/23/2001

Fulton County is so named in honor of Robert Fulton (1765-1815), whose professional life was centered in New York in his later years. He was an engineer, inventor and builder of the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807.

first appeared: 9/16/2001

The name of Canandaigua Lake in western New York is derived from an American Indian word meaning “the chosen spot.”

first appeared: 9/9/2001

In 1885, New York State acquired property around Niagara Falls and established the first state park in the United States.

first appeared: 9/2/2001

Born in Angola (pop. 2,266), Willis Haviland Carrier (1876-1950) developed the formulas and equipment that made air conditioning possible. A year after his graduation from Cornell in 1901, his first installation of air conditioning was in operation, controlling temperature and humidity in a Brooklyn printing plant.

first appeared: 8/26/2001

Eastman Kodak’s Brownie—the country’s first mass-produced camera—cost $1 when it was introduced in 1900 after being developed at the company’s Rochester headquarters.

first appeared: 8/19/2001

Since 1981, milk has been the official state beverage of New York.

first appeared: 8/12/2001

In 1931, duck farmer Martin Maurer built a 20-foot-tall duck-like structure using concrete applied over a wooden frame. Taillights from a Model T Ford became its eyes, glowing red at night. Maurer sold ducks and eggs from the shop in its belly. The shop, located in Flanders (pop. 3,646) still operates—selling duck souvenirs to visitors.

first appeared: 8/5/2001

The town of Beacon (pop. 13,200) got its name from the Revolutionary War when fires burning on a nearby summit, now called Mount Beacon, warned George Washington of British movements up the Hudson River.

first appeared: 7/29/2001

George Westinghouse Jr. (1846-1914), born in Central Bridge (pop. 500), may have been the most productive inventor on record. His appliances, including sewing machines, washers, dryers, the first “turnover” toaster, irons, grills, percolators, AM-FM radios, and record players, were among his 361 patents.

first appeared: 7/22/2001

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