Conrail was created in 1976 – largely to cope with the destruction from Hurricane Agnes four years earlier. The year 1976 also saw the deaths of Mao Zedong, Zhao Enlai, and Zhu De, the three leading figures of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
As this current half-century of our history began, those brand-new hand calculators (as big as half a brick, costing several hundred dollars) rapidly shrank in size and price, while increasing in capability.
Following suit came the pocket phone, the home computer, the laser printer, and the Internet. The first “Star Wars” film transformed both movies and science fiction. Viewers were soon screening movies at home, using VHS or DVD. Kitchens added microwave ovens.
In the energy crisis of 1980, gasoline broke a dollar a gallon … and never looked back.
The Town of Bath reached its top population (12,379) in 2010. Steuben County’s population, which had peaked in 1970, steadily decreased and aged. Some school districts merged, while others closed buildings. All of Steuben’s Catholic parochial schools closed their doors, though St. Ann Academy appeared as a new Catholic private school. Several church denominations merged their congregations.
Bath got a new purpose-built library in 1999 – followed by new libraries in Hammondsport and Pulteney.
Erie Depot Museum and Finger Lakes Boating Museum opened their doors in Steuben. Curtiss Museum moved to a huge new facility. Curtiss volunteers studied, reproduced, and flew several pioneer airplanes.
In 1992 WVIN radio host David Taylor Smith “jumped in the lake” (Salubria) while a few amused onlookers pledged donations for area youth programs. In 2026 the annual “Tyrtle Beach” event surpassed a total of a million dollars raised. Jumpers have included sheriffs, teachers, school administrators, county legislature presidents, and a future member of Congress.
Bath’s Steuben Courier newspaper, whose history went back more than two centuries, issued its final edition. Other longstanding businesses lost (either entirely, or in their local operation) include Taylor Wine, Western Auto, A&P, Philips, Bennett Motors, and Babcock Ladder.
In half of the new century’s first six presidential elections, the electoral college system provoked confusion, or even crises. The Soviet Union fell apart, but was mostly succeeded by dictatorships, rather than democracies.
Largely based on research done at Corning Glass, fiber-optics revolutionized communications, along with surgery and medical imaging. Corning Glass Works became Corning Incorporated.
Pretty much vanishing during this period were the telephone booth, the telephone operator, the newsstand, the gas-station pump jockey, the milkman, the circus, and the drive-in movie … not to mention the downtown walk-in movie theater … although they still exist in Corning and Hornell!
Beginning with the 1980 presidential election, major-party candidates have twice been women, twice been Catholic, once been Mormon, once Greek Orthodox, three times non-white, and eight times (all males) divorced – all major departures from our previous history. The Steuben County Legislature elected its first woman president.
The COVID pandemic killed 300 Steubeners, meantime provoking a lot of confusion and dislocation. It’s possible that this included significant undercounting in the 2020 census – “tune in” four years from now, and we shall see what we shall see!
Losses in this half-century include Amo Houghton, Charles Champlin, Dr. Konstantin Frank, Walter S. Taylor, Guy Bowles Bennett, and W. Sterling Cole. During this period the last Great War veterans passed away, as did the last of the pioneer aviators. George H. W. Bush was the last president to be a veteran of World War II. Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict XVI had served in that war as teenagers – they were the last survivors who were also heads of state.
Despite our high hopes half a century back, we still don’t have jet packs, flying cars, rocket cars, ecological stabilization, or peace on earth. We also have no clue what new technologies will dominate our grandchildren’s world. Whatever comes, we hope they’ll be able to enjoy it.
Best wishes to them all.
– Kirk House, of the Steuben County Historical Society, writes a column appearing in The Leader and The Spectator.
This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Steuben County happenings from 1976-2026 | America 250
Reporting by Kirk House, Steuben County Historical Society, Special to The Spectator / The Evening Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Kirk House, Steuben County Historical Society, Special to The Spectator | USA TODAY Network
