News

Welcome to the Bicentennial News Section!

Find all of the latest Bicentennial Celebration announcements and updates here!

Welcome to the Bicentennial Store

A variety of Bicentennial items are available for purchase and all proceeds benefit Bicentennial events.

Visit our Bicentennial Store located at the Community Center on Main Street in Bolivar to purchase the following items.
Store hours: Monday- Friday from 9:00-12:00

The Bicentennial Store will be open additional hours for the Holiday Season! In addition to our regular morning hours, the store will also be open December 10, 13, 17 & 20 from 6:00 – 7:30.

If you are interested in visiting the store outside of those hours, please reach out to the Bicentennial Committee for assistance.

HISTORY

A Brief History of the Bolivar Area

The early Native Americans used the nearby Little Genesee Creek Valley over thousands of years. The creek was an important path for these people as they traversed the countryside looking for the deer which were such a staple of their diets. The Oswayo Creek joined with the Little Genesee in Ceres eventually reaching the Allegheny River, a major thoroughfare for the ancient people, in Portville. These early people camped along the banks of the Oswayo in Ceres, while other groups built hilltop settlements nearby.
In 1819, Timothy Cowles and his two young sons arrived on the scene from eastern New York State and became the first permanent white settlers of the Bolivar valley. Soon they cleared the land, built a log house, and carved a niche for themselves in the wilderness. Each year thereafter, more and more settlers arrived, as word of the fertile soil, vastness of forests, and abundance of game, spread back home.
By 1825, enough citizens lived near the confluence of the Root Hollow and Little Genesee Creeks that they decided to form a town in newly-formed Allegany County. In February of that year, they selected the name “Bolivar” to honor the then-living liberator of South America, General Simon Bolivar.
For the next 56 years, the population of Bolivar seldom exceeded 160 hard-working residents. These people made their livings as farmers, loggers, and tanners. They continued to carve fields for their farm animals out of the ample forests as the settlement expanded.
In April 1881, a huge oil gusher was struck about two miles up the road in the town of Wirt. Within ten months after this oil strike, Bolivar had become a boom town of 4500 excited oil seekers, and combined with the population of nearby Wirt, the entire valley became home to some 10,000 -12,000 fortune seekers. Business thrived in both communities, and along with the good came the bad that was so representative of any “boom town.” Oil fortunes were made or lost overnight due to gambling with the oil industry or gambling at the card tables.
Oil production slowed within a year, and the population of Bolivar dropped as suddenly. In 1920, the introduction of “flooding,” the secondary recovery of oil, brought Bolivar into a newer and longer-lasting period of prosperity. This new method of recovery caused oil and gas production to soar to undreamed-of heights, and “black gold” flowed into the coffers of a rejuvenated Bolivar. Public and private improvements sprang to life in Bolivar, and soon our community (along with nearby Wellsville) was one of the wealthiest communities per capita in New York State.
This much-needed wealth provided Bolivar with social and economic benefits not experienced by most other communities. The population grew not only in size, but also in affluence, and the bank balances of the oil producers increased in direct proportion as the community eaded into the second half of the 20th century.

A Brief History of Oil and Natural Gas in Southwestern New York

>New York State has a long history of oil and gas production. In fact, the first natural gas well was drilled in Fredonia in 1825. For many years, townspeople in that community had noticed that flammable natural gas was seeping out of the black shale in stream beds. After the well was drilled, pipelines were built, first out of wood coated with tar-soaked rags, and then later out of lead and tin. Gas from the well was eventually used to light the streets and many buildings in Fredonia. This new source of light was hailed around the world.
Oil seeps (places where oil slowly escapes to the earth’s surface) were common in southwestern New York when the first European settlers arrived, and Native Americans were said to have used the oil for medicinal purposes. The first petroleum (oil) was “discovered” by the French at the oil spring near Cuba, New York in 1627. This was considered a sacred spot by the Seneca Indians who lived in the area. As the first settlers arrived in this area, crude oil was used to treat burns and sprains, rheumatism, and to cure horses’ saddle sores. Oil was also drunk to help with a variety of ailments.
The first commercially successful oil well in the world was drilled just south of Jamestown, NY in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. The drilling boom that followed soon moved north and east to Bradford where a boom struck from 1875-76. By the 1860’s oil was known to exist in the Bolivar area. In 1879, two failed wells in nearby Allentown led to “Triangle No. 1” which was drilled by O.P. Taylor. The boom town of Petrolia sprang up, and the southern portion of Allegany County came alive with oil fever.
On April 27, 1881, a group drilled a well in nearby Richburg. The well was shot and 70 barrels of oil soon began to flow. This was the “Richburg Discovery Well” which began the oil boom that forever changed the Bolivar valley. By 1882, the Bolivar area combined with the nearby Bradford, Pennsylvania field to produce almost 23 million barrels out of a total of 27,661,000 barrels produced in the entire United States. This meant that this area produced 83% of the country’s entire output, as well as 77% of all the oil produced in the world for that year.