Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 817. It's FLX Morning Monday and we're Zooming in with Kerry Lippincott at Historic Geneva. The website is HistoricGeneva.org. Good morning.
Kerry Lippincott: Good morning. Good morning.
Paul Szmal: Now, this is going to be neat. These are all neat, the History's Happy Hour, but this one is about World War II in Geneva on January 16th. And of course, at that time, Geneva was a real military town with everything happening at Samson.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, it really was the boom years for Geneva. And if I had a time machine, I think the 1940s probably would be one of my maybe top three picks to go back to Geneva to.
So you had the Seneca Army Depot. You also had the Samson Naval Training Center. And both of those facilities drew workers and of course, soldiers and the population just exploded. So you had about maybe 13,000 folks by 1943, but then you had 25,000. End of the war with another 30,000 with staff and the recruits at Samson. I just can't imagine. Downtown was booming and you had a lot of different industries to switching over to war production. So it should be a very interesting slideshow.
Again, you can come at any time. John runs it on a continuous loop. If you can't make it to the History Happy Hour, just wait a few weeks. He typically converts those into short videos, which you can find on our website. But History Happy Hour will be on January 16th at Lake Drum. And that's from 430 to 630, like Kerry said, walk in any time.
Paul Szmal: Also, that was partly because of the military presence. That was part of the heyday of Club 86, when people would go out on a Saturday night and see all these huge names from the jazz and big band world.
Kerry Lippincott: Oh my gosh, you had Club 86. You also had the corner of Seneca and Maine. You had a USO Center too. It's just, I'm told the movie theaters in Geneva, I think all three ran 24 hours straight. So it just must have been just an amazing time to be in Geneva. It just, yeah.
Paul Szmal: So that's World War II in Geneva, the next History Happy Hour on the 16th. And you have an opening for someone to run the gift shop.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah. So if you enjoy working with the public or like local history, we are looking for a gift shop manager to run our gift shops at the Geneva History Museum and Rose Hill Mansion. If you're interested, we have the full job description is up on our website. But as I said, we run both gift shops, build relationships with vendors, help us with our online sales and conduct the lovely annual inventory of both gift shops. So again, a full job description is on our website.
Paul Szmal: Let's talk about some of the plans for 2025. Of course, one of the big ones is the reopening of the History Museum. You've talked about that at Rotary and shown us a lot of great pictures and it was a great job of keeping the historic aspect of the building, but modernizing it for today. So tell us about what's on tap for 2025.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so fingers crossed in February, we hope to have a grand reopening of the Geneva History Museum. We also have been doing some work at Johnston House on the other side of Seneca Lake. So we're hoping to have that open on the weekends come the summertime. And then of course, we have a variety of exhibits. So for the past couple of years, we usually have done a joint exhibit between the Geneva History Museum and Rose Hill and this year's theme is going to be art. So we'll have artwork by Agnes Juan Hutchins, who was born and raised at Rose Hill and her daughter Margaret will have their artwork on display out at Rose Hill. And then at the Geneva History Museum, we'll do a two-part exhibit with artwork from our collection. And to kick that exhibit series off, we're actually going to have a special exhibit at the Dove Block in April. So you can get a sneak peek of some of our artwork. And then for the History Museum, our reopening exhibits, we've got one about funeral homes and the other one about firefighting in Geneva, the history of the various fire incidents.
Paul Szmal: Now we don't talk about Johnston House as much as we do some of the other things. We've talked a little bit about drain tile, which I still don't really understand. So tell us about the Johnston House.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so this was, Johnston House was built by the Scottish immigrant John Johnston, who came to the United States in the early 1820s. And the house is located on the original land where he became a well-known advocate of improved farming techniques. And he was the first farmer in the United States to use drain tile. And that basically, drain tile increased the productivity of his farm. So he's considered probably among the first sustainable farmers. Many of the practices that he started, very commonplace today, drain tile, rotating your crops, using manure.
So we have his home located about on an acre and a half. So, and to be honest, we've struggled how to interpret this space. We've tried several different things. So what we're gonna try in the summer is before his farm was actually profitable, his family ran a tavern. So we're converting the kitchen into a 19th century tavern. We'll have one space for rotating exhibits. And then another about drain tile, because believe it or not, the main attraction to Johnston House are drain tile people. We have people come across the United States and even Canada come to see our drain tile collection. So it's kind of a niche, niche to get there.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. But I don't understand drain tile either. I have to get John Marks to explain it for you.
Kerry Lippincott: Well, there's an excuse for me to go to Lake Drum, so I can talk to John about drain tile.
Paul Szmal: Yes, there you go.
But the tavern aspect is interesting too, because back in those days, you know, you travel by horse or carriage or whatever, and you know, a 25 mile trip or a 50 mile trip would be a big deal. And so, you know, those watering holes in between were important for people. A lot of them had inns attached where people would stay the night.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah. And the interesting thing about Johnston House is it was on a major road between Ithaca and Buffalo. So we have a feeling that perhaps that was a major stop. We don't think that it, we think it was probably, as you said, a watering hole, kind of a thruway rest stop, if you will. We think they had overnight guests. The interesting thing is we do have their tavern license and they couldn't serve alcohol and you couldn't play games, which were popular amusements at other taverns. So, but again, the farm just wasn't making money, so they had to find different ways to do it. And apparently having a tavern did it for them.
Paul Szmal: I'm surprised the tavern made any money if they couldn't serve drinks.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, well, maybe it was known for the family-friendly version of a tavern. I don't know.
Paul Szmal: Now, here's the other thing that bears reminding people, and that is that if you go to the website historicgeneva.org, you're always putting digital content there. Like you said, John puts up the history happy hour slides after the fact, and you've got blog posts and videos and just lots of interesting history tidbits all throughout the year.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so just a reminder that our website, it's open 24-7. You can look for our calendar events on the website. We do a weekly blog and we've actually have, I counted it the other day, we have over 600 articles on our blog about various topics.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I was amazed by that number.
Kerry Lippincott: Connected to Geneva's history, we do have some past programs. Definitely the slide shows from history happy hour are worth watching. We've got some history at home activity. So there's just, it's very content-rich. So you've not only our contact information and calendar, but if you're interested in various aspects of Geneva history, our website is the place to visit.
Paul Szmal: And I know you're always looking for assets from the public that you can borrow and digitize and then give back.
Kerry Lippincott: Yes, we are. I know our archivist, Becky Chapin, is hard at work trying to do, convert, or actually digitize our VHS videos and some of our other film that we have. But yeah, we're always looking. If people are not ready to donate their originals, we can make scans or digital copies of things and give them back. We just would like to have a record for future generations to enjoy.
Paul Szmal: All right, historicgeneva.org, history happy hour, World War II in Geneva, January 16th, Lake Drum Brewing, 430 to 630. And go to historicgeneva.org and look for the opportunities link if you might be somebody who could manage the gift shops at the History Museum and Rose Hill Mansion. Carrie, thanks as always. Great stuff and looking forward to a great 2025.
Kerry Lippincott: Oh, me too. Thank you very much.
Paul Szmal: Thank you. All right, Carrie Lippincott, Historic Geneva, our guest at 826 now, FLX morning.
