Cooperstown

Cooperstown is a village in and county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. Located at the foot of Otsego Lake in the Central New York Region, Cooperstown is approximately southwest of Albany, southeast of Syracuse and northwest of New York City. The population of the village was 1,852 as of the 2010 census.

Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The Farmers' Museum in the village opened in 1944 on farmland that had once belonged to James Fenimore Cooper. The Fenimore Art Museum and Glimmerglass Opera are also based here. Most of the historic pre-1900s core of the village is included in the Cooperstown Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980; its boundaries were increased in 1997 and more contributing properties were identified.

History

Native American use

Before European colonization, Iroquois Indians inhabited the area around the village and Otsego Lake. The name ''Otsego'' is from a Mohawk or Oneida word meaning "place of the rock", referring to the large boulder near the lake's outlet, today known as "Council Rock". It is a large boulder whose top is above the water's surface and can be seen from shore. It is believed to have been a meeting place for Native Americans prior to the American Revolutionary War. A small parcel of land near Council Rock was presented to the Village of Cooperstown in 1957, on the condition that it remain open to the public as a park.

Settlement

The village was developed within part of the Cooper Patent, which William Cooper – who later became a county judge – purchased in 1785 from Colonel George Croghan, former Deputy to Sir William Johnson, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Northern District. The land amounted to . William Cooper founded a village on Otsego Lake. His son, James Fenimore Cooper, grew up in the frontier town. He later became a noted American author with ''The Leatherstocking Tales'', a series of novels that includes ''The Last of the Mohicans''.

Cooper established the village of Cooperstown in 1786, laid out by surveyor William Ellison. At the time, the area was part of Montgomery County. It was incorporated as the "Village of Otsego" on April 3, 1807. The name was changed to "Village of Cooperstown" June 12, 1812, after the founder. William Cooper was appointed as a county judge in the late 18th century and was elected to the state assembly from Otsego County.

Cooperstown is one of only twelve villages in New York still incorporated under a charter, the other villages having incorporated or re-incorporated under the provisions of Village Law.

Cooperstown today

Cooperstown is best known as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which was founded in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark. According to an interview conducted in 1906 by the Mills Commission, nearby resident Abner Graves attributed the game's invention to his deceased friend, Abner Doubleday. Graves stated that Doubleday invented baseball on a cow pasture within the village in 1839, the present site of Doubleday Field, but this claim is universally discounted by baseball historians.

Once known as the "Village of Museums", until the 1970s Cooperstown also boasted the Indian Museum (adjacent to Lakefront Park), The Carriage and Harness Museum (displaying a world-class collection primarily from F. Ambrose Clark's estate; now the Bassett Hospital offices on Elk Street), and The Woodland Museum near Three Mile Point. The latter, opened in 1962 by heirs to the Anheuser-Busch company, folded in 1974. It ran a close third in annual attendance to the Hall of Fame and Farmers' Museum.

The Cooperstown Historic District, Glimmerglass Historic District, Middlefield District No. 1 School, Fly Creek Historic District, Otsego County Courthouse, and United States Post Office are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Business district

Superficially, the downtown commercial district looks not unlike it did in the 1970s. It has undergone significant change since the late 20th century.

Through the 1970s, Main Street was still home to at least five grocery stores, including an A&P. Western Auto had a branch on Main Street and J.J. Newberry's had built, in 1960, a two-story five-and-dime with a fountain and lunch counter. Smalley's, a stage theater converted into a movie theater, had a single screen across from a Farm & Home store. With its post office, library, and the Baseball Hall of Fame, Main Street resembled a true village square.

Today, the village has fewer traditional services for year-round and seasonal residents. Once boasting half a dozen gas stations, the village now has two. Traditional grocers have been reduced to one, and in 1977 Great American was built on the outskirts of town, replacing the town's bowling alley.

In 2010, it was converted to a Price Chopper. Hardware stores such as Western Auto, McGown's and Farm & Home have been displaced by an Ace Hardware just outside the village. Newberry's morphed into a single-floor general store with the basement stairs boarded up, and even this general store finally closed entirely in 2017. Sherry's Famous Restaurant closed in the late 1990s after more than half a century of business. Most Main Street shops now cater to the tourist trade and feature gifts and souvenirs.

The Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce, established in 1917, looks to develop business and trade in the Cooperstown region. Serving also as a visitor center in its main office, the Chamber also manages a seasonal kiosk on the corner of Main and Pioneer St for tourists.

Cooperstown was formerly served by the Cooperstown Municipal Airport, which was a two-runway facility fewer than two miles to the northwest of town center. That field closed in the 1960s. The village is now served by a small grass field in nearby Westville and a larger paved one-runway facility in Oneonta.

Sister city

The sister city of Cooperstown is Windsor, Nova Scotia. This is due to Windsor's claiming to be the birthplace of ice hockey and Cooperstown at one time being considered to be the birthplace of baseball.

Geography and climate

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , of which is land and (2.53%) is water.

The source of the Susquehanna River is in Cooperstown at the outlet of Otsego Lake. Blackbird Bay of Otsego Lake is north of the village.

The junction of New York State Route 28 and New York State Route 80 was constructed at Cooperstown. The village is also served by County Routes 31 and 33.

Climate

Cooperstown has a humid continental climate (Dfb), with cold, very snowy winters, warm summers, and abundant precipitation year-round. Freezing temperatures have been observed in every month of the year, except for July. The record low temperature is , set on February 9, 1934, and the record high temperature is , set on July 9 and 10, 1936.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 2,032 people, 906 households, and 479 families residing in the village. The population density was 1,317.5 people per square mile (509.5/km²). There were 1,070 housing units at an average density of 693.8 per square mile (268.3/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 96.21% White, 0.94% African American, 0.10% Native American, 1.62% Asian, 0.34% from other races, and 0.79% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.31% of the population.

There were 906 households, out of which 23.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.9% were married couples living together, 8.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.1% were non-families. 41.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 19.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.05 and the average family size was 2.83.

In the village the population was spread out, with 20.2% under the age of 18, 5.4% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 26.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 45 years. For every 100 females, there were 81.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 76.8 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $36,992, and the median income for a family was $50,250. Males had a median income of $39,625 versus $20,595 for females. The per capita income for the village was $26,799. About 5.0% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.5% of those under age 18 and 5.4% of those age 65 or over.

Arts and culture

Annual cultural events

The Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is a yearly ceremony where inductees are officially added to the Hall of Fame. In 2020, the ceremony was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The internationally noted Glimmerglass Festival is closely associated with Cooperstown. Founded in 1975, the company originally performed in the Cooperstown Junior/Senior High School auditorium. In 1987, the company relocated to farmland donated by Tom Goodyear of the Cary Mede Estate north of the village, where the Alice Busch Opera Theater was built, the first new opera-specific hall in the United States built since 1966. It has a popular summer season with a reputation for producing high quality opera and commissioning new works.

Tourism

The Baseball Hall of Fame is the main site of the village, and has been attracting baseball fans since 1939. According to the Hall of Fame, 260,000 tourists visit the museum each year, with over 17 million total visits.

Other attractions include the Farmers' Museum, the Fenimore Art Museum and its library, and the Clark Sports Center, a large fitness facility, where the annual Hall of Fame Induction is held. Also close by to the village is the Fly Creek Cider Mill and Orchard located in the hamlet of Fly Creek, and the Brewery Ommegang located south of Cooperstown.

Sports

The Clark Sports Center is an recreational center with of outdoor fields established in 1986. The Hall of Fame induction is held annually at the center. The facility was renovated and expanded in 2013.

Cooperstown retains a close connection with the baseball world, and "Cooperstown" has become synonymous with the Hall of Fame. Several nationally recognized tournaments are held in the area. Cooperstown Dreams Park in nearby Hartwick Seminary hosts 104 level U12 teams for weekly tournaments in the summer. Several professionals, including David Price and Matt Garza, have attended CDP. In 2010, Cooperstown got an official baseball team of its own, the Cooperstown Hawkeyes, a Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League team who play against many other teams from the northeast during the summer, with home games played at historic Doubleday Field. In 2014 the team was voluntarily suspended from the league.

Notable people

Notable historic year-round or summer residents of Cooperstown included:

*Kenneth Bainbridge - physicist, contributor to the Manhattan Project
* Erastus Flavel Beadle - pioneer in publishing pulp fiction, in particular creating the dime novel
*Fredericka Martin - writer, historian, Spanish civil war volunteer
*F Ambrose Clark - equine sportsman, philanthropist, art collector
* Robert Sterling Clark - philanthropist, racehorse owner, art collector
*Stephen Carlton Clark - philanthropist, art collector
* William Cooper, founder and politician
*James Fenimore Cooper, grew up here and lived here as an adult, novelist of the New York frontier
* John A. Dix − Civil War general and political leader
*Abner Doubleday − Civil War officer and supposed inventor of baseball
* Bud Fowler − baseball player and member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
*Kevin Guilfoile - author of ''Cast of Shadows'' and ''The Thousand''
* Samuel F. B. Morse − inventor, painter
*Samuel Nelson − Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
*Thurlow Weed − newspaper publisher and Whig and Republican Party politician
* Michaela Dietz − actress
*Lauren Groff - writer and novelist

Cooperstown writers

Aside from James Fenimore Cooper, noted Cooperstown authors include his daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper, the author of ''Rural Hours'', and his great-great-grandson Paul Fenimore Cooper, author of '' Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom'' (1929, 1957, 2001).

Other writers include the prolific poet W. W. Lord, who captured Cooperstown in many of his poems, as well as modern author Lauren Groff, who has written extensively about her hometown, notably in '' The Monsters of Templeton'', a story that brings several Cooperstown legends to life.

The work of Cooperstown-based novelist and poet Marly Youmans has referred to the area, notably in her epic poem ''Thaliad'' (2012), in which a group of child survivors of an apocalypse travel north and make their new home in an abandoned village on the shore of Glimmerglass Lake.'

The Clark family

The Clark family, whose fortune originated with a half-ownership of the patent for Singer Sewing Machine, have lived in Cooperstown since the mid-19th century. The family's holdings include interests assembled over a century and a half, which are now held through trusts and foundations. Their dominance is reflected in Clark ownership of more than of largely undeveloped land in and around greater Cooperstown.

In the village, the Otesaga, the Cooper Inn, Clark Estates, and the Clara Welch Thanksgiving Home are all Clark properties. In addition, the Clarks were founding partners of, and retain an interest in, the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital.

Cooperstown still receives support from the Clark Foundation, which has donated to a variety of causes including various scholarships, non-profit organizations, and village services. The family has also donated land for the Cooperstown Central School District's new high school location − formerly horse stables − as well as for parks such as Fairy Springs and Council Rock, and recently, for a new Little League

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