Progress With Contradictions

The decade of the 1920’s in the United States was a culmination of the social and political changes that had taken place in the two previous decades, some positive and some not so positive. I’ve talked a little already about the boom and bust nature of the industrial revolution that was at its height from the 1870’s through the 1890’s and into the early 20th century (See the articles “Coming to Amerika” and “Getting Started in Pennsylvania”). Names like Rockefeller (Standard Oil), Vanderbilt (railroads), Carnegie (steel), Ford (Ford Motor Company), Morgan (General Electric, International Harvester), are all prime examples of the capitalists who amassed vast financial empires. Their success was built in large part on the backs of the immigrant working class who provided the labor they needed for the factories and assembly lines, tanneries, logging operations, and the like. Yes, some of them were also important philanthropists who built universities and libraries, but that doesn’t change their reliance on child labor, low wages, union-busting practices and unsafe working conditions that allowed them to accumulate such enormous wealth that it is still unprecedented even by today’s standards.

In direct response to the unsafe working conditions and unregulated exploitation of the working class, there had been a succession of worker-led protests and clashes around the country that were brutally beaten down in massacres that made headlines. The aftermath of such encounters led to a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo on both sides of the equation. In response, the federal government passed a series of laws and Constitutional amendments that were designed to level the economic playing field (trust-busting legislation) and provide safety standards that would appease the most fervent demands of the working class (occupational and food safety laws). A chief concern of the legislators was protecting the interests of the moneyed class so they could continue their factory production lines and corporate expansions relatively unimpeded.

In 1919, in an effort to legislate a new moral order, women’s right to vote was finally recognized and alcohol was outlawed in the United States.

In school many of us learned to associate the 1920’s with economic prosperity and changing social and cultural standards. The Roaring Twenties symbolized a more relaxed social environment and the end of the Victorian Age with its strict rules around dress and behavior (especially for women). The Jazz Age ushered in a new and unique brand of American music and dance. The exponential increase in manufacturing had led to an exponential increase in the accumulation of consumer goods such as alarm clocks, radios, and instant cameras, and appliances such as electric refrigerators and washers and dryers. Indoor plumbing and electric lights were game changers for American households. Steady work in the manufacturing sector gave rise to a growing middle class who could afford the new gadgets and were eager to have them.

There was a dark side to these transformational years, however, that should not be ignored. To the detriment of people of color, the Ku Klux Klan was revived during this period, which ushered in an era of rampant, violent terrorism against African Americans throughout the South. Unsafe living conditions in the southern states reached such a pinnacle that millions of families fled to the north and west in what is known as the “Great Migration” that began around 1910 and continued through the 1960’s. Even in the north and west, the KKK would sow racial divisions and support local efforts to prevent African Americans from achieving the American Dream; in some cases, this meant actively destroying economically successful communities, such as the one in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1919.

This was also the period of the Red Scare, when Americans became fearful that democratic structures would collapse under the weight of the perceived horrors of socialism. During the early 1900’s socialism was indeed considered a viable political option in the face of the extreme disparities between the ultra-rich “Robber Barons” (or “captains of industry,” depending on your point of view) and the poverty-stricken, struggling workers. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 epitomized the logical results of unregulated capitalism and the high cost of fighting back or standing on the sidelines. Many ugly clashes between rich and poor, conservatives and progressives, black and white, and different immigrant groups, occurred during this time. When it came to immigration, travel to the U.S. dropped off dramatically due to the passage of new federal laws that set quotas for the number of people who would be acceptable from different countries and continents. There was a definite preference for Western Europeans, who were allowed in with little or no restrictions, and severe restrictions on anyone coming from Africa, the Middle East, or Eastern Europe. Asians were excluded completely.

All of the above was going on while Frank Larson’s family was growing up and he was building his own financial security. So where did Limestone and the Larsons fit into this mishmash of massive social, economic and political change? Let’s dive in and find out!

Larson’s Grocery Comes to an End

During the 1920’s and probably before, Frank was actively pursuing his exit strategy from the grocery business. The 1920 census lists Flo, Bertie, Dora, Fred and Helen as all living with Frank and Emma at the house on Main Street. In 1930, the census lists only Frank and Emma at that address. In 1920, Frank is still listed as “merchant, general store,” but in 1930, both he and Emma are listed as “none” in the box for occupation. So what changed?

Frank operated as Larson and Son with his son Fred up until 1927, when Fred, 38 years old at that point, left the grocery to start a funeral business in Dunkirk and Fredonia, about 60 miles north of Limestone on the shores of Lake Erie. That left Frank alone in Limestone to manage the business without help from any of his children, who had all married and moved away by then. I’m sure it wasn’t a hard decision for Frank to make. After all, he had been in business in Limestone for almost thirty years and none of his children had interest in taking it over. Once Fred left, it was no longer Larson and Son, and at the age of 66, Frank was ready to retire and focus on other interests.

Pennsylvania Oil Boom

While the logging and tanning industries in Pennsylvania were harvesting the trees and processing the buffalo hides that existed on top of the ground, another industry, ultimately even more extensive in size and scope, was exploiting resources under the ground. We tend to think of Texas as the primary site of the oil boom in the United States, and in terms of longevity it probably is. The discovery of oil in Texas, however, is not the whole story. It took an oil prospector in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania (about 75 miles west of Limestone and Bradford) to figure out how to get oil out of the ground in large enough quantities to supply cities, power engines, produce petroleum-based products on a mass scale, and ship to waiting markets. Edwin Drake would never become rich from his innovative approach to commercial oil drilling, but his employer, the Seneca Oil Company and its successors and competitors most certainly would.

Hundreds of wells were dug and by the mid 1880’s, over 80% of the oil in the U.S. came from the Bradford Oil Field. Standard Oil Company, run by John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man in the United States at that time, controlled over 90% of all the oil being produced in the country. The new “trust-busting” laws passed in 1909 (and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1911) would force the company to break up its monopoly and form 34 separate entities, but this did not stop the few biggest ones in which Rockefeller maintained an interest from continuing to completely dominate all the others.

During the entire period that Frank had his grocery store there were thousands of oil and gas wells being dug all over the surrounding area but especially in the Bradford Oil Field, which covered 84,000 acres in New York and Pennsylvania, including the area surrounding Limestone. During the height of its operations between 1871 and 1936 this field was one of the most productive in the world, producing over 350 million barrels of oil. Although the U.S. oil industry has largely moved on from Pennsylvania to other states, like Texas and Alaska, the influence of these early wells was significant and long-lasting. The Kendall Oil Refinery in Bradford was well-known around the country for producing high-quality petroleum. The current refinery there, now owned by American Refining Group, has managed to stay in operation as a shining beacon of industrial success for more than 125 years.

Forward-thinking men like Frank Larson saw an opportunity to take advantage of this boom. Even while he was running the store, Frank was acquiring properties in the area and and making his plans for life after groceries. Numerous wells were dug and pumps installed, including some that were less than a mile from Frank’s house on Main Street. According to Frank’s daughter Florence, the kids would play on the pumps and ride up and down on the pumper, apparently putting themselves in danger on occasion. Flo told a story that involved making a fire at the site (was there oil on the ground that they just lit up?) for roasting hot dogs and then having to roll in it to put it out because of all the wells in the area. As she described it to my mother, “we got it started but couldn’t get it out.” When he leased the rights to the oil and gas, Frank negotiated for unlimited access to gas for heating his house, which meant that every room in that big house had heat in the winter, quite a luxury for the homes of that era. Frank also had a pump in front of the house so that he could sell gas for cars that drove by. This was in the days before the branded gas stations that we are so familiar with now.

The oil business was and remains a dirty, smelly, noisy and dangerous business. In order to extract the oil, nitro-glycerin was stuffed into the hole and blown up, thereby loosening the paraffin deep down in the ground that otherwise slowed or stopped the free flow of oil to the surface. Just outside of Limestone a refinery was built as well as a chemical plant that produced nitroglycerin. One could regularly hear the pop of the explosions and see the smoke rising from the wells throughout the region as the operators worked to extract every last drop of oil that lurked under the wells. In November 1925 an explosion at the chemical factory storage facility blasted a crater 30 feet deep and 50 feet in diameter. The blast killed the operator, shook buildings and broke panes of glass in town, and could be heard and felt for miles around.

Between the odors of the tannery and the odors of the oil and gas wells, not to mention the noise of the logging mills and trains going through town regularly, and the oil well explosions going off all over the place, it must have been quite an experience to grow up there or to run a business. Given that these oil and logging operations were present in pretty much every town in that region during those decades, Limestone was probably as good a place to settle in as any.

Limestone and Bootlegging

Most of us know about the organized crime and bootlegging that thrived in New York and Chicago and around the country after the Volstead Act took effect in January, 1920. This era of mobs, murders, speakeasies, rum running and other unsavory activities has been romanticized in the many books and articles written about Al Capone, “Lucky” Luciano and other gangsters, or in movies and TV shows such as Boardwalk Empire or The Untouchables. Some of us even know enough about the era to know that organized resistance to the new law was not only going on in New York and Chicago, but also in cities such as Buffalo and Detroit, as well as key cities on the West Coast.

What I didn’t realize until I began doing this research, is that little old Limestone, New York was very strategically located in terms of bootlegging opportunities and organized crime activity. In the years leading up to Prohibition, the town was still thriving even as the tanneries and oil refineries were slowing down their operations or going out of business. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the town attracted the attention of organized crime syndicates, which were not all that organized before Prohibition but gained steam after the law passed. When Prohibition became a reality and the crime gangs set up highly organized (and highly profitable) systems for importing, manufacturing, transporting and selling alcohol, the village fell victim to many of the more unsavory aspects of that illegal trade.

Salamanca, about 12 miles due north, sat at the halfway point for travel between New York City and Chicago. With air travel in its infancy and no super highways, the transportation of liquor or anything else illegal between these two prominent cities would have gone right through Salamanca. Add to that the fact that both Limestone and Salamanca were on a direct line south from Buffalo, which was also a very active mob-run portal for liquor coming into the U.S. through Canada. All the ingredients were in place to put Limestone on the map as a competing location for profits and fights over control of the bootlegging black market.

While organized crime was certainly not limited to one ethnic group, Italian immigrants seemed to comprise a large proportion of the crime bosses in the New York area, and this tendency spilled into Limestone as well. Vices such as prostitution, gambling and gang wars, in addition to the bootlegging activities, made their way to Limestone and were so prevalent that the town became known as “Little Cicero” by many. Apparently there were shootouts with machine guns that occurred out in the open during business hours. Murders were all too common in general in the 1920’s, but in Limestone there was a higher proportion of contract killings than one would have expected in such a small town. According to one first person account, two bodies were once found in the trunk of a car. People who grew up in Limestone during those years described the practice of throwing dead bodies into bushes after cutting their throats, or burying them on back roads outside of town. The local lore of the time described the use of frogs placed on fence posts that were intended to mark the spot and to serve as a warning to others. In one account someone was knifed and his ear was cut off so the killers could prove they had done the dirty deed. However, apparently the man was not dead and managed to crawl to the road where he was found by his wife. Mystery and intrigue worthy of a true crime series! Just sayin…!

Newspaper accounts tell the story of Thomas Delguidico, known in town as “Midgie,” who lived in Limestone during the Prohibition days. Midgie was assumed to be a member of the Italian mafia and was thought to be behind a number of the attacks and murders in and around Limestone. He was also the intended victim of at least one assassination attempt. According to the news report of the incident two cars rolled into town from New York City one day. The men got out, surrounded the house where Midgie lived, and then sprayed a volley of bullets at the house. Midgie was not home at the time, but his wife was and fortunately escaped without physical injury. Apparently some of the bullets also broke a storefront window, entering the store and ruining a brand new popcorn machine (I love the little tidbits I find here and there that add detail and texture - imagine what it must have been like to be the storekeeper working in the back of the store when all of a sudden a rain of bullets come crashing through the window and hit your popcorn machine). The two cars then disappeared “into the mists and mysteries of western New York” (such journalistic eloquence!).

Impact of Changing Times on the Larsons

Throughout all this turmoil of the 1920’s and the decades leading up to Prohibition, Frank Larson was running his store on the corner of Main and River Streets, with several of his children working alongside him. His house on Main Street, which was on the route to and from Buffalo, was about a mile down the road from the store. The saloons and other establishments that catered to travelers and drinkers, and which jumped at the chance to join forces with the mob and enter the bootlegging market, were located on River Street just down the road from the business district and Frank’s store. Some amount of crime was inevitable in a lively community like Limestone, and in 1914 Frank’s store was broken into and several hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise was taken.

I don’t know the exact year, but sometime in her early 20’s when Florence was living at the Limestone house and working as a clerk at the grocery, some people stopped by Frank’s gas pump that stood in front of the house and said they needed gas. Flo told my mother that she wasn’t really thinking about crime but something made her want to go out with her father that night. She was taller than Frank, and put on a big thick “crazy-looking” long Indian-patterned robe that she had made from a blanket. She purposely kept her hand in her pocket (as if she might have a gun) and stood right next to Frank as he pumped the gas. When Frank commented that “they didn’t need much gas” Flo got scared and wondered what might have happened if she had not been there. Fortunately, the people moved on without further incident, but looking back at it many years later Flo was glad she had stood guard over her father that night (even though she didn’t actually have any weapon). Flo displayed a courageous and independent spirit that night, and it is but one of many examples of Flo’s adventurous exploits over her lifetime. I love that I had a chance to meet her several times before she died at age 106.

Prohibition would not be overturned until 1933. The people who lived through this notorious time in Limestone reported to local historians that the organized crime mobs moved out once alcohol was legal again, and the town returned to its unassuming existence as a small village trying to keep pace with the declining economy as the logging and tanning industry disappeared and the oil industry continued its long, slow descent. By that time Frank was long out of the grocery business and enjoying retirement with Emma, which consisted of visiting family, serving as a home base for his various children who returned to the nest from time to time to regroup after a divorce (which several of the Larson girls seemed prone to do), and managing the income from his oil leases. During the 1920’s he and Emma made at least one trip to California to see their children Jenny and Alex, and at least one trip to Mobile, Alabama to see their son Walter and his wife Gert. Those families also made visits to Limestone where they enjoyed picnics, trips to nearby Rock City and Niagara Falls, and otherwise hung out together.

Next Steps

Not sure what I’ll be focusing on in the next article, so I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out!

Resources

The following publications and websites provided some of the information in this article:

• Costik, Sally Ryan. (2006). Images of America: The Bradford Oil Refinery. Arcadia Publishing. Charleston, SC.

• Library of Congress. Oil and Gas Industry: A Research Guide. https://guides.loc.gov/oil-and-gas-industry/introduction.

• Olean Evening Times. (May 25, 1925). Series of Liquor Raids at Limestone.

• Olean Evening Times. (November 4, 1925). Nitro-glycerin Magazine Explodes Near Limestone; J. S. Skinner Meets Death.

• Olean Evening Times. (August 21, 1928). Limestone Folk Are Disturbed Over Gunplay.

• Park, Martha Wilson. (1991). (Untitled). Self-published history of Limestone. Held at Cattaraugus County Historical Museum and Research Library.

• Zinn, Howard. (2003). A People’s History of the United States: 1492-2001. HarperCollins Publishers.