Luensman, John R.  "Jamestown And Chautauqua County Through The Years," Jamestown (NY) Post-Journal, .
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Jamestown And Chautauqua County Through The Years

        By John R. Luensman
        County Planning Director

    A review of the 1885-1889 Journal of Proceedings of the Board Of Supervisors of Chautauqua County, New York, provides an additional context in which to look back at Jamestown in the year it became a city. Add to these proceedings and the tables found there in census data, and the following picture may be drawn.
    From the day the Village of Jamestown was established, March 6, 1827, to some time between 1930 and 1940 the village/city sustained almost continuous growth. In the decade of the change to city status, Chautauqua County's population went from 65,342 in 1880 to 75,502 in 1890. The City of Jamestown accounted for 6,681 or 66 percent of the county growth. Over this decade, the Jamestown population went from 9,357 to 16,038.
   
    Historic population information for the City of Jamestown from its beginning as a village on March 6, 1827, is hidden in the town of Ellicott data until 1880, when a population of 9,357 of the town's population of 10,842 is shown as the Village of Jamestown. The next federal census in 1890 shows a city of 16,038. The year of 1886 the citizens of Jamestown changed its status from village to city. The reasons for this change are hidden in now outmoded state legislation or the manner in which the state constitution dealt with the city debt and financial limitations at that time.
    Today in 1986, the City of Jamestown is one of 61 cities in the state of New York exclusive of New York City. It ranks 15 in population with 35,775 persons. It ranks 17 in land area with nine square miles within its corporate limits. In population size, it outranks all but two of the 556 villages of the state.

    The year of 1886 found the new City of Jamestown six years into what would be a period of some 50 years of almost continuous growth. From 1880 to 1930, the city population would go from 9,357 to 45,155 persons, an increase of 483 percent. County population would not quite double from 65,342 to 126,457. In the decade the Village of Jamestown became a city, 6,681 persons would select Jamestown out of the 10,260 that would move into Chautauqua County.

    The city would, in 1886, begin its under-representation on the then 26 member Board of Supervisors with two supervisors - Daniel Griswold, 56, a farmer who for the previous seven years had represented the Town of Ellicott on the board, and Jerome B. Fisher, 35, a lawyer. Both men were Republicans. Neither was a native of the county. Griswold came from Wyoming County, N. Y., and Fisher originally came from Russellburg, Pa. Both would be replaced on the 1887 board.  The City of Jamestown would remain under-represented on the Board of Supervisors until 1970, when by court action, weight voting came into force.

    The 1886 Chautauqua County Board of Supervisors opened its annual session on Sept. 27, 1886, and carried on county business through the week to Saturday, Oct. 2, 1886. At the Friday evening, Oct. 1, session, Griswold presented a petition which had appeared in the Jamestown Journal, a daily newspaper, from Aug. 13 to Sept. 24, signed by 33 persons and attested to by Fred P. Hall, one of the publishers of the paper. The petition requested "a change of the site of the following named county buildings of the County of Chautauque; to wit: the Court House, the County Clerk's Office, the Jail, the Treasurer's Office and the Surrogate's Office" from Mayville to a five-acre site on the northwesterly side of Baker Street.
    This represents only one of a number of attempts to change the location of county government, which started in the first meeting of the Board of Supervisors in 1811 and is still brought up today.
    It was moved to consider the petition at the adjourned session in November when it was tabled after a short debate.

    A look at the tax rolls of the county in 1886 shows that there was a countywide tax base of $27,226,114 of which $2,575,890 was personal property. The City of Jamestown provided $2,491,945 in property tax and $333,000 in personal property to this total or just under 10.4 percent. Total taxes for school, state, county and town purposes were $236,163.80 compared with $71,903,000 for similar functions in 1984 on a tax base of $2,460,000,000.
    The budget showed only $16,936.53 for town roads and bridges. At this date there was no county highway department or function. Roads became a direct county responsibility in 1909-10.

    Using the tax assessment rolls of 1886 allows one to understand much about the style of life at that date. The rolls show 461.01 miles of telegraph and telephone poles with 1,990.41 miles of lines. There are neither lines nor poles in the Towns of Arkwright, Charlotte, Ellery, French Creek, Mina or Villenova. There are 29 miles of natural gas service lines in Jamestown and 6.75 miles in the Town of Kiantone. There are none in the remainder of the county. There is no indication of electric utility service in 1886. The first year that electrical systems show up on the assessment rolls for tax purposes is 1889.
    Railroads are noted as nine in number, but only seven of them have any trackage on the assessment rolls of 1886. The City of Jamestown has 3.66 miles of track as the Jamestown Street Railroad. The cars are horse drawn. The Chautauqua Lake railroad appears as owning land but no trackage. In 1887, this railroad is assessed on 14.39 miles of track in the towns of Ellery and Ellicott.

    The latest insight into the economic structure of Chautauqua County which provides detail that allows one to view a part of the structure of Jamestown's economy are the Federal Economic Censuses of 1982, just released in 1985. The next of this census series will be done in 1987 and released about 1990. Therefore, we have only the 1982 work with enough detail to construct a partial economic description of Jamestown for its centennial year of 1985. With the recognition that the data is four years old, of the 1982 Economic Census series, four provide countywide and Jamestown detail. There are the Census of Manufacturing, Retail Trade, Service Industries and Wholesale Trade.
    Jamestown at the 1980 Census had a population of 35,775, or 24.3 percent of the county's 146,925 persons. As a manufacturing center within its corporate limits, the city provided 5,400 of the county's 15,300 manufacturing jobs in 1982. Of $293,800,000 in payroll in the county, $94,900,000 were earned in Jamestown. Of $664,200,000 in value added in the county in manufacturing, $180,000,000 was done in Jamestown. Countywide value of manufacturing shipments totaled $1,410,300,000. $303,500,000 originated from Jamestown. The largest payroll by product was fabricated metal followed by machinery, with electrical with furniture and fixtures (which was once, in the past, one of the leaders) providing less than 10 percent of the $94,900,000 in payroll.

    Jamestown as a retail trade center continues in certain segments to dominate countywide sales. This is particularly true with automotive dealer sales wherein 48.4 percent of the county's 1982 sales of $98,221,000 were made in Jamestown. One must review back to the 1963 Census of Retail Trade to find  Jamestown in the dominant position in regard to general merchandise sales when it provided 54 percent of the county total. By 1982, it registered $18,612,000 or 30.7 percent of total sales in this group of $60,586,000 in sales when it ranked second to Lakewood.
    A review of retail sales for Chautauqua County from 1963 through the 1982 Economic Census shows the changing role of Jamestown as the retail sales center of the county.
    If one uses the proportional share of population as the measure of the capture of retail sales, it is apparent that the city is providing sales to outside populations. In 1980, the city's population was 24.3 percent of the total county population.

    Jamestown, in 1982, supplied 49.4 percent of all receipts in the service industries of the county and 50.6 percent of the $43,963,000 of the annual payroll. It dominates the the health services (calculated without including hospitals) with $24,596,000 out of $39,356,000 in receipts.
    Wholesale trade in Chautauqua County in 1982 had sales of $512,712,000 and a payroll of $32,751,000. Falconer provides the site for more than one-third of these sales, $189,997,000 and just more than one-third of the payroll. Jamestown ranks second with one-sixth of the sales and 27 percent of the payroll.

10/31/2003

jpl