Today’s article will highlight three unusual place names, two in the town of Lockport and one in the city. The first was a short-lived location lasting only a few years; the second still endures after nearly 200 years.
“Blue City” was a temporary labor camp set up on Hinman and Bear Ridge roads behind the former Niagara, Lockport & Ontario Power Company plant not far from the old Hitchins Bridge at Summit Street and State Road.
The camp was built in January 1909 to house mostly Italian and Polish workers of the United Engineering Company, the firm contracted to enlarge Section 40 of the Erie Canal in Lockport. This encompassed the canal from the Transit Street Bridge to Sulphur Springs (where the guard gates are, near the Fiegle Road Bridge), a distance of about five miles.
This particular stretch of the canal was part of the “Deep Cut,” the stone corridor excavated in the 1820s to connect the locks at Lockport with Tonawanda Creek in Pendleton. Much of the work would still involve blasting away tons of rock, but the equipment had advanced considerably since the 1820s. This enlargement widened the canal from 70 feet to 90 feet and deepened it to 12 feet.
The camp was called “Blue City” because all the buildings were painted blue. At least three barrack style buildings, along with other several structures, were constructed to house and support about 300 men. There was one for laborers, one for skilled workers and one for engineers.
For those men who lived in the city, the International Railway Corporation added a spur to the camp from their line going out of the city. A special fare of 5 cents was granted to the workers for the morning and evening commuting hours (this was same rate as the city trolleys but beyond the city limits the fare was normally 10 cents). In January 1911, the workers petitioned the Public Service Commission to request the IRC have the special fare at all hours of the day as well as providing a “more commodious station” at Hinman Road. A year later, it was reported that the request had been granted but now the workers wanted it to apply to transfers to other lines as well. Whether this was approved could not be found.
Newspapers from 1910-1913 detail a “rough and tumble” existence including fights, robberies, assaults, murders and at least one riot committed by “Blue City” men either in the camp or in the city of Lockport (90 years earlier, it was the Irish canal workers who were engaging in the same sort of activities). Reports of work-related injuries and deaths were also noted, with workers being “blown up” and losing appendages.
The task was made more difficult because there were limits on the work that could be done during the canal season. In the off season, the men had to contend with harsh weather conditions. Many of the photos in the Niagara History Center collection show the laborers and equipment working in the snow. The other complication was that Canal Road (now Bear Ridge Road) could not be closed to traffic while the enlargement work was taking place.
It took more than four years to widen and deepen this five-mile stretch, and when the work was completed in June 1913 the camp was dismantled. The total cost of the enlargement of this section was $2,237,256 (almost $73 million today).
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Other place names such as Rattlesnake Hill were apt 200 years ago when there were an abundance of those reptiles in that area. Due to Lockport being on the Niagara Escarpment, there are several other places with the word “Hill” in the city. Deport Hill and Factory Hill both referred to the northern end of Washburn Street where it meets Union Street. These names need no explanation but what about “Pioneer Hill”? Except for those who grew up in that section of the city, some people may not know the origin of that name.
In 1823, a young man named John Gooding came from Rochester to the small but booming village of Lockport and bought a large tract of land on the northern edge bordering on the brink of the Niagara Escarpment. A few years after moving to Lockport, Gooding, who was a deacon in the Presbyterian Church, was outraged to learn that stagecoaches not only operated on Sundays, but also delivered mail for the U.S. Post Office on the Sabbath. In 1828, to counter what he perceived to be a violation of the Lord’s Day, Gooding joined like-minded men across the state and started a new stage line that would not run, or carry the mail, on Sundays. Called the “Pioneer Line,” the service operated between Albany and Buffalo six days a week.
To service his horses and coaches, Gooding built a barn and blacksmith shop on his property at the end of Washington Street at Gooding Street. The area became known as “Pioneer Hill” because of the stage line that stopped there, and Gooding was known as “The Deacon of Pioneer Hill.” During the first year, Gooding’s stage line competed favorably with the other stages but when the Pioneer Line bid on the U.S. mail contract and lost to another line that operated on Sundays, it became obvious that many people were not prepared to give up their Sunday mail or the convenience of traveling on that day. After two years of operation, the Pioneer Line was abandoned.
Gooding left Lockport, New York, for Lockport, Illinois, in 1838, and died there in 1840. His sons remained here and eventually started the Gooding printing company that has been in existence since 1876.
Almost 200 years after Gooding left, his “Pioneer Hill” is still identified as a distinct part of the city of Lockport.
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And then there is Shooktown. There are two theories as to the origin of the name of this area of Akron Road between East High Street and Lincoln Avenue at Bowmiller Road. The one most people adhere to is that it was derived from several Schuck/Shook families that were early settlers on the involved roads. Former Town of Lockport historian Larry Haseley has done extensive research on those families and their connection to that area. A copy of his article about Shooktown is available by contacting the History Center.
The other proposed theory is that Shooktown is derived from the word “shook,” referring to the wooden parts needed to assemble a barrel (staves and top and bottom pieces). Although there were coopers (barrel makers) on Akron Road, they appear on the maps later that the Schucks/Shooks. Coopers were found in most communities as barrels and casks were used for various purposes by many people at that time, so it would not have been unusual for the Akron Road area to have had one or more of these tradesmen. Perhaps it was a coincidence that the surname and the term could both be attached to that area.