A Rookie's Guide to Twain Country: All Aboard

Take it from a Rookie, if you want to learn what Elmira is all about, take a trolley tour on "The Elmiran" and prepare to get schooled.

Rides are available Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through September 3rd, departing from the Holiday Inn Riverview.

"The Elmiran" is one of the few historical trolley reproductions existing in the U.S.

It's no secret that Elmira sometimes gets a bad rap, but I think a spin on the trolley will make a believer out of anyone that it's steeped in loads of fascinating history that contributes to the uniqueness of its character today.

Oops. Sorry. "X-Files" fan.

I went on the Downtown Elmira tour, which runs earlier in the day, and then on the Harris Hill tour, which runs at 2 p.m. Here are a few of the pieces of trivia I learned that contributed to some newfound appreciation of my place of residence:

1. Elmira was once a Vaudeville capital, hosting greats such as Mae West, the Marx brothers and George Burns. The Near Westside Historic District was once home to many boarding houses, where performers were likely to have stayed.

And speaking of the Near Westside, at 22 square blocks, it's the area with the highest concentration of Victorian architecture in the state.

Hello, Painted Lady.

2. The spire of the Trinity Episcopal Church is made of brick, which is extremely rare. The Park Congregational Church's minister for 40 years was Thomas Beecher, whose sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." And the First Baptist Church was used as part of the Underground Railroad.

Basically, we've got some pretty cool churches.

Park Congregational

First Baptist

3. Elmira College, which was founded in 1855 exclusively for women, was the first college in the world to grant women a degree equal to men. Needless to say, it incurred a lot of bad press back in those days for its stance on gender equality.

(I knew the EC trivia going in, but only because I'm an alum. And the college actually remains predominately female, at about 70%.)

Olivia Langdon, future wife of Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, attended college at what was then called the Elmira Female College. (Her future husband, however, didn't make it much past sixth grade. Score one for the ol' "opposites attract" theory.)

Another fun campus fact? It was believed that after a couple walked three times around "The Puddle" (also known as the "Passion Puddle"), no man could resist proposing marriage.

The power of "The Puddle"

In contrast to all this romanticism, Cowles Hall, which is currently undergoing a major renovation, is widely believed to be haunted. That was the rumor when I was in school, and apparently two construction workers just recently left because of strange happenings. So the trolley tour even has stuff for enthusiasts of the spooky.

4. Mark Twain's Study, where he wrote his most famous works during twenty summers spent in Elmira, is in an octagonal shape because Susan Crane, his sister-in-law, designed it to look like a riverboat pilothouse. (Twain had been a riverboat pilot.)

Twain also smoked, like, 30-40 cigars a day. Susie gave him privacy to write and smoke.

Twain was very serious about his privacy whilst writing, by the way. His own daughters had to make an appointment before coming to see him in the study.

The study's original location was up at Quarry Farm (on East Hill, overlooking the Chemung River, "the view that inspired Twain"). It was moved in 1952 because of threats of brush fire and vandalism.

5. Another local structure patterned after a boat? The giant Chemung Canal Trust Company building, which was built to resemble a canal barge.

6. The Brand Park Pool is one of only six surviving Binst pools in the nation. Binst pools date back to 1936, and Binst Pool Corp. salesman used to sell them by upturning their own straw brimmed hats to illustrate the shape the pool would have.

Trolley Master Mark Delgrosso demonstrates pool selling.

7. The New York State Fair had its beginnings here. We were home to the fairgrounds for 20 years before the event was moved to Syracuse. The trolley tour includes where the large cast iron gates used to stand, and Dunn Field sits on what used to be the fairgrounds.

8. Maple Avenue was best-known for its trolley run back in the day. Passengers used to travel to Wellsburg, home of mineral springs that were believed to have healing qualities.

Today, one of the highlights of Maple Avenue is The Christmas House, which is painted in sixteen colors.

9. A Civil War prison camp known as "Helmira" once stood here, which held 12,000 Confederate soldiers. 3,000 of them would die because of the notoriously bad conditions.

As Trolley Master Delgrosso put it, it's not a proud moment in our history, but one that deserves to be commemorated.

John W. Jones, a former slave who fled north and helped with the Underground Railroad, buried the Confederate soldiers here, including an individual earthen crock for each containing a handwritten personal account of each man.

When the Daughters of the Confederacy came to bring the soldiers' bodies home after the war, they discovered Jones' act of compassion and decided to leave the soldiers resting in Woodlawn Cemetery, taking only the earthen crocks.

They are some of the last Confederate graves still in the north, and the cemetery is also home to the northernmost Confederate monument in the whole U.S.

The cemetery holds more than 80,000 graves, which is triple the population of the city. Famous folks buried here, aside from Twain, include film and television producer Hal Roach (of Laurel & Hardy and "Little Rascals"), Ernie Davis (the first African American to ever win the Heisman Trophy) and the aforementioned John W. Jones.

10. You won't ever find gliders sharing the air with hot air balloons. They require completely opposite conditions. Hot air balloons need still, quiet air, while gliders need thermals.

Learned that one on the Harris Hill tour.

The gliders were in action when the trolley made its fifteen minute stop at the National Soaring Museum, which I was really happy about because I hadn't yet seen them soaring: