Chautauqua Lake Region

Description

by Kathleen Crocker & Jane Currie
The period from the late 1800’s through the mid-1900’s is fondly remembered as the heyday of the Chautauqua Lake region in southwestern New York State. It was a wondrous era, when railroads, steamboats, and trolleys transported local residents as well as wealthy and socially prominent families from Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati, and St. Louis to their summertime destinations around Chautauqua Lake. This “pocket museum” focuses on the myriads of attractions that once dotted the lake’s forty-two mile shoreline: hotels, parks, camps, picnic groves, rowing clubs, boat liveries, fish hatcheries, icehouses, railroad, and trolley depots, and steamboat landings.