In the eighteen-thirties through the eighteen-nineties, a few blocks west of here was the location of several leather working industries. Saddle and harness makers, leather trunk makers, and leather dealers had small shops just west of Genesee Street.Why did we have a leather industry in New York? In New York, leather was produced in the Catskill and Adirondack mountains where the Hemlock Trees used in tanning grow. It is also connected to another very popular business in the area, cheesemaking. When a cow is no longer productive in making cheese, they are recycled into food and leather. Other leather industries that sprung up in the Mohawk Valley took advantage of the dairy-leather connection, for example, glove-making in Gloversville.Leather was shipped by the canal and railroad. The Erie Canal opened in eighteen twenty-five, the Syracuse and Utica Railroad opened in eighteen thirty-six. Both helped bolster the leather trade in Utica. A few blocks west of here, there used to be a street called Morrocco Alley, named after Morocco Leather, a soft, pliable form of leather widely used for gloves and the uppers of ladies' shoes and men's low cut shoes. This street was located next door to the current Adirondack Bank Center at the Utica Auditorium.

Saddle and Horse harneses were made here.

This area was once the heart of downtown Utica, but the highway system's expansion has erased many of the early buildings located here. Utica was uniquely located the early routes for transportation through the area: The Mohawk River, Erie Canal, and the railroad all make Utica a hub of commerce. Early Utica had several tanneries and supported numerous leather artisans such as shoemakers, harness makers, and saddle makers.

Utica and the Leather Industry

You are standing on Main Street at what was once the foot of Genesee Street. Before the highway overpass and multilane highways were built a town square known as Bagg's Square was located here. It was named after Bagg's Hotel which was started in seventeen-ninety-seven. The stone building located in the park to the north is the Bagg's Memorial Building built by the proctor family to memorialize the famous hotel which stood here.From its earliest days, Utica had shoemakers. They were an essential part of the community because everyone needs shoes. Small workshops and itinerant shoemakers custom-made shoes for each customer. Shoemakers were also known as "cobblers" or "cordwainers."The first City Directory of Utica was printed in eighteen seventeen it lists twenty -three shoemakers, most of them were located with a few blocks of Bagg's Square.

Welcome to the Walking Tour of Utica's Shoe District brought to you by the Oneida County History Center. The museum, library, and archive are located at 1608 Genesee Street, and we hope you can come to visit. This tour will stop at five sites associated with Utica's now vanished shoe industry.Utica has a rich industrial past and manufactured everything from stoves, guns, radios, and, most notably, long underwear. It is best known for its massive textile industry, and at one time, Utica produced more knitted goods than any city in the United States.This tour focuses on one of the lesser-known industries, shoemaking. Utica was a leading city in producing women's and children's shoes for almost twenty years. Many of the factories were just a few blocks from each other.

The railroad was an essential part of the shoe industry in Utica. The trains were running even before large-scale shoe manufacturing was established. The Syracuse and Utica Railroad was chartered in1836 and opened on July 4, 1839. The railroads were in direct competition with the Erie Canal (which we will hear later about on this tour) because they were faster and could reach places that the canal could not go.Raw material and finished goods were shipped by train, and many shoe factories were within just a few blocks of the depot. Leather came into Utica by train; shoes left Utica by train. Trains also carried passengers who came to visit the bustling city of Utica and nearby Trenton Falls. The shoe companies capitalized on the traffic on Main Street to lure customers into their stores.

This is Utica's third train station which was built in 1914. All three of the train stations in Utica were built at this location. Union Station was important to the city and the country in its heyday. In the nineteen-thirties and forties, Utica had the largest freight yard of any area east of the Mississippi, right here at Union Station.

Union Station

Moses Bagg built a tavern at this site alongside the Mohawk River in 1795. When he died in 1805, his son took over the business and enlarged the hotel several times. Guests include General Lafayette, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, and Ulysses S. Grant. The historical marker erected in 1932 has an error: George Washington never stayed here.  In addition to overnight lodging, many meetings, conferences, dinners, and weddings were held at the hotel. It served as a stopping point for stagecoach services and the railroad.The hotel went through a series of owners (and name changes). In 1869 Thomas Proctor acquired the hotel. Although it continued to operate into the 1930's newer hotels outshined the aging hotel, and the unemployment of the Great Depression didn't help business either.In July 1932, Mrs. Thomas H- Proctor assisted the unemployment problem by foreclosing a mortgage she held on the famous old Bagg Hotel. Her husband had been proprietor but which was now severely run down. She ordered the building be torn down, with the work being done by the local unemployed. After the building was razed, the grounds were landscaped, and a small stone building (The Proctor Memorial) was erected to house Hotel Bagg records- The top of the building has a bronze eagle made by Tiffany, N. Y.

This site is not directly associated with Utica's shoe industry but we are stopping here for a bit of an orientation to the oldest part of town. This little park was once the center of downtown Utica at the corner of Main and Genesee Streets. This was the site of the Bagg Hotel which operated here for over one hundred years. The hotel was the finest in Utica and hosted many dignitaries and politicians over the years. This memorial was placed by the Proctor Family after the hotel had been torn down as the city expanded.

Bagg's Hotel and Proctor Memorial Building in Bagg Square Commemorative Park.

The opening of the Erie Canal was a tremendous boom for Utica. The canal gave people easy access to transportation of raw materials and finished goods. Many industries flourished, including leather and shoemaking. The Erie Canal ran straight through downtown Utica following what today is known as Oriskany Street or 5 S. Commercial and Industrial businesses were nestled shoulder to shoulder along the canal in Utica's central business district.The Great Fire of Eighteen Thirty-Seven:The great fire of Utica broke out about 2 o'clock in the morning on March 31, eighteen thirty-seven, on the second floor of a frame building on the corner of Genesee and Broad streets. The building housed a grocery store, a silversmith, and a jeweler. According to the Utica Observer of April 4, eighteen thirty-seven: "...the wind was high from the east and most of the buildings, being of wood (a few have brick fronts), the flames spread with great rapidity, and before the engines could be brought into play, had obtained a mastery that was almost impossible to overcome..." The fire consumed a total of thirty-four buildings, most of them merchants and a handful of private dwellings. The article goes on to say, "Undaunted by the disastrous fire, Uticans immediately began the reconstruction of the block..." This was not the last Great Fire of Utica. As we will see later in the tour, fires took their toll on the Utica shoe industry as well.

As the city of Utica grew, so did its shoemaking industry. The first large-scale production of shoes began in eighteen thirty-seven by John Cantwell. He had a shop at 3 Catharine Street, where he employed over a dozen employees making what some referred to as “the finest shoes and boots in Central New York." There were twenty-eight shoemakers listed in the 1838 City Directory; by 1840, there were close to one hundred. Most of the shoe maker shops were centered around the foot of Genesee Street and the surrounding blocks. These were located close to the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.The first "Great Fire of Utica" happened in eighteen-thirty seven. Almost as a natural type of Urban Renewal several fire burned this lower part of Genesee Street and forced the city to rebuild. The fire of eighteen thirty seven burned the western side of the one hundred block of Genesee Street which was considered an older and run down area needed of improvement.As we move on to the next stop the prosperity of the Erie Canal and New York's railroad system were in full swing. Utica's population expanded as did the shoe industry..

The First Shoe Factory, the Erie Canal, and the Great Fire of 1837.

Many shoe manufacturers changed location as their business expanded; Holbrook is one example. They were first located at 9-11 John Street, adjacent to Bagg's Hotel. In 1884 the firm built a four-story factory at 8-10 Catherine Street. It was a sizeable five-story building with electric lights and an elevator. Unfortunately, the new factory was short-lived. They lost their factory in one of Utica's greatest fires on March 2, 1884, which destroyed the Holbrook factory and at least nine other buildings. The fire started in the engine room of the Holbrook factory. It spread to an adjacent nine other buildings, including City National Bank, The Utica Observer newspaper, hardware and furniture stores, and more. It caused one million dollars in damage (worth 28 million dollars in today's value.). The Holbrook factory was quickly rebuilt in the exact location.In the 1880s, the Knights of Labor began to organize the shoe workers, and a series of strikes took place. These weren't large-scale strikes but usually just one or two factory departments. Because the factories were using mass-production techniques, the work of the entire factory was disrupted. Holbrook must have paid his workers well; he never had a strike at his factory.The firms all proliferated so that, by 1890, between one and two thousand people were employed to manufacture shoes in Utica. The labor cost and demands of the labor force took their toll on the shoe industry.For the last four years of his life, Mr. Holbrook was mentally troubled by financial hardships which caused his factory to close in 1895. He died soon after.

On December 1, 1874. George H. Ludlow, who had been superintendent for Reynolds Brothers, formed a partnership with H. J. Holbrook and began manufacturing shoes at a large building purposely built fas a shoe factory at 9 through 11 John street. The firm occupied six floors and produced 700 pairs of shoes daily, with finer grades of French and "American Kids", they specialized in shoes for women but soon boy's shoes were added, it was Utica's Second largest shoe factory.

H. J. Hollbrook and Compnay

Shoe manufacturing became mechanized when steam engines began to be used in factories. Large-scale factories flourished in the 1870s and 80s when Utica made 1,500 – 2,000 pairs of shoes each working day by over two thousand workers.R. S. &amp; W. H. Reynolds started business in 1865 at 6-8 Fayette street, employing sixty-eight workers and producing 268 pairs of ladies' and misses' shoes daily. In 1866 their brother George A. Reynolds joined the firm, and in 1867 the plant was moved to 21-23 Blandina street. In 1873 this factory was partly destroyed by fire, and the firm purchased the old "Military Hall" on the corner of John and Catharine streets and began the work of enlarging and re-modeling the building. Their shoes bore the trademark UTK and were equal to the finest made in the country. The eldest brother, Samuel, withdrew and moved to Chicago, where he had extensive real estate holdings. When William H. Reynolds died in 1874, George Reynolds continued the business.Richard Samuel Reynolds Biography:Richard was born in New Hartford and was educated at the Whitestown Seminary. He was sophisticated in his tastes, quiet in manner, and enjoyed the best in literature. Richard studied telegraphy and began his career. He journeyed westward in 1858 with John Butterfield and worked in Denver when it was a settlement of only 6 log cabins. He was very successful as a telegraph operator, gold hunter, and stagecoach operator. He worked as a telegraph operator in Arkansas and was later in charge of a telegraph office in Colorado. While in Colorado, he began to work for the Wells - Butterfield Express and was put in charge of a 400-mile route!In 1865, Richard returned to Utica and partnered with his brother, William, to manufacture women's fine shoes. The Reynolds Brothers began on the corner of Genesee and Liberty streets grew rapidly, moved to Blandina Street, and then to the corner of Catherine and John streets. At the start, the Reynolds Brothers made about 120 pairs of shoes a day and grew to about 1,500 pairs a day. Their shoe factory was the largest of five in Utica and had a reputation for representing quality and fair pay. Richard S. Reynolds was instrumental in establishing one of the great manufacturers which for many years made Utica an industrial center, and spread its name afar.”In the 1880s, the company employed 1,000 workers and made one thousand pairs of shoes daily. They did a business of $800,000 a year, and the total sales of the factories in Utica were $2,000,000 yearly. (The equivalent of $63,000,000 today).Reynolds had ongoing trouble with organized labor and strikes and permanently closed the factory in November 1893. The building continued to be used but had a terrible fire in 1901. It was rebuilt but torn down as part of urban renewal in 1974.We now go to the Hurd building, one of the last remaining architectural remnants of Utica's once thriving shoe district.

The Reynolds Brother Shoe was the largest manufacturer of shoes in Utica. They operated from several different buildings over the years. They specialized in the manufacturing of high-quality women and children's shoes. The Reynolds Brothers had the largest factory in Utica. Their first factory was located here at the corner of John and Broad Street.

Reynolds Brothers Shoes

DeWitt Hurd started in the shoe business in 1867 as a traveling salesman for another shoe company from Utica, Case &amp; Tallman. When that company was dissolved in 1892, he partnered with M. J. Fitzgerald to form Hurd &amp; Fitzgerald Company which sold shoes and rubber goods in New York and Pennsylvania with twelve traveling salespeople. Mr. Hurd retired from active business management about 1914; Mr. Hurd retained his interest in the establishment through the board of directors.Hurd Shoes did not manufacture shoes but was a wholesale distributor. They had shoes made to their specifications by numerous companies and sold them under the Hurd brand. They sold them to private shops and later national chains like JC Penny, Target, and Sears.In the 1920's they carried six hundred styles of shoes, including men's and women's: dress, work and casual, casual and tennis shoes, mocassins, and "Dr. Dickenson's Hurd Health Shoe." They expanded into western New England. In 1957 Barton Hurd became the fourth generation in the family to join the company.In 1969, the Hurd Company took a very forward-looking move and invested in computerizing its inventory and billing system. They purchased a state-of-the-art IBM 360 computer. ITe IBM 360 was not cheap to buy. In most cases, businesses rented the models for around $20,000 since they cost about $2 million. Branching out from their shoe business and taking advantage of their computing ability, Hurd created Utica Computer Services Inc.The short-lived Utica Computer Services promised "ETC: efficiency through computing" and their services would allow businesses to contract monthly services in payroll, accounts receivable inventory, or "you name it."Competition from cheap foreign-made shoes was a challenge for Hurd which closed in 1993. The building is now home to a variety of professional businesses.

The Hurd Building is the last building standing from Utica's once-thriving shoe industry. The building was built in 1911 and designed by Utica architect Frederick H. Gouge who also designed the Doyle Hardware building, John C. Hieber Building (the former Children's Museum,) and the Utica Daily Press building. The Hurd Company operated out of this building for over sixty years.

Utica Shoe District Tour

Utica and the Leather Industry

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources