In 1911, flying at the height of about 1,500 feet, Aviator Calbraith P. Rodgers soared over Jamestown at a mile a minute gait, and his flight was witnessed by practically all of the 31,000 population. It was a sight long to be remembered, the first heavier than air flying machine that had passed through this region. That interest in the aviator was keen was evident at an early hour when telephone calls were received at The Journal office asking the hour the aviator was expected to appear. No information could be given because it was not known the exact hour he would leave Salamanca and, moreover, The Journal office force was not omniscient. The big fire whistle in Jamestown boomed the announcement that he was coming. Scarcely had the final whistle blast died away when like magic the roofs of the business blocks began to fill with people and groups gathered at the street corners and gazed eastward. For a brief moment they saw the propeller blades glitter in the sunshine and heard the whir of the machinery, then the machine gradually dwindled down to nothing in the west.
Business at the local post office in Jamestown was steadily on the increase and it was quite possible that between the present time and Christmas, additional carriers would be added to Postmaster Allen's force of blue coats. "We hope to increase the force by Nov. 1 if the department sees fit," said Mr. Allen. There were 25 carriers and 37 clerks and assistants at the post office but the tremendous amount of business at the office, which had increased considerably of late, made the present force inadequate. According to Postmaster Allen there was no one definite locality where carriers were needed but all over the city. Nothing had yet materialized relative to sub-stations but their establishment in Jamestown seemed inevitable.
In 1936, the farm home owned and occupied by Mrs. George Scott and sons, Carl and Eugene, located on the Hatch Run Road near Warren, was destroyed by fire Saturday morning. Occupants of the dwelling saved only the clothes they were wearing. Mrs. Scott, who was about 80 years old, was saved from death when the sons carried her from the burning building in her nightgown. According to reports ,the sons arose at the usual time and after building a fire in the kitchen stove, went to the barn to do the milking. Soon afterward they discovered the house to be in flames and they had time only to remove the mother to safety. The occupants of the house were given temporary quarters at the home of Roy and Byron Hatch.
Harold Cooper, who was associated with the publicity department at Chautauqua Institution, gave some of his ideas about Chautauqua Lake and publicity therefor at a luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club. According to Mr. Cooper, Chautauqua was the forgotten lake among resorts appealing to public interest and something should be done about it. The effectiveness of the Chautauqua Institution program of publicity was indicated by a report of 23 percent increase in attendance of 1936 over 1936.
In 1961, a band of Cornell University students, including a Freedom Rider, ignored showers of firecrackers and eggs to protest against nuclear testing. The demonstrators, ringed around a sign proclaiming "Vigil Against Fallout" in the middle of the Cornell campus, were pelted with firecrackers and then with eggs. A water bomb was thrown also as campus police dispersed hecklers. Charles Haynie, a graduate student from Queens who was jailed in Jackson, Miss., as a Freedom rider, said one of the persons who threw the eggs yelled something about Communists. "We are protesting Communist bomb testing," Haynie said.
The New York State Motor Vehicle Department termed its new electronic licensing system a success, despite "some minor difficulties." A Department spokesman said precision machinery in the streamlined system, which employed punch cards, IBM machines and an electronic brain, functioned smoothly, but this was not always true of the people in the system. Some human errors, he said, occurred within the department, such as when a punch card machine operator hit the wrong keys and instead of John Smith, out came XZCVBNMN. There were a "substantial" number of more minor errors in producing the punch cards, he said.