From Business View magazine
Allegany County, population, 47,000, lies in the southern
tier of western New York State, just north of the Pennsylvania border. It is
bisected by the Genesee River, which flows north to its mouth on Lake Ontario.
In the early days of its settlement, the region’s tall forests provided cut
timber and were a main source of the area’s economy. As the timber was removed
from the lower hills, and the land laid bare, agriculture crept in, and it is
this industry that is paramount in the County, today. At first, grain was the
principal crop, followed by wool growing and cattle raising, as the Genesee
Valley Canal and, later, the Erie and other railroads opened the way to more
productive grain lands. Currently, the County’s economy is driven by dairy and
mixed farming; apples do well, while the humble potato is one of its main
products, next to milk and hay.
The discovery of a great oil pool beneath the surface of the
County was perhaps the most momentous occasion in its history. In fact, the
first petroleum in the United States was noted by Roche-d’Allion, a French
Jesuit, in 1627, near the current town of Cuba. But it wasn’t until the coming
of the famous Old Triangle No. 1 well drilled in nearby Allentown in 1879, that
anything came of the priest’s find. Although the oil boom has long since
passed, a fabulous amount of money came into the County in the late 1880s, and
there were towns growing overnight. For fifteen years, the oil brought to the
surface had more value than all the rest of the County’s products combined. It
could not last, at least on the scale at which it had started, and, today, oil
production occupies a minor part of Allegany County’s economy.
Though oil production is no longer prominent within the
county, the production of energy continues in the 21st century in new forms,
spurred on by the renewable energy programs at Allegany County’s three
institutions of higher learning: Alfred State College, Alfred University, and
Houghton College.
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