Did you know…
1. Though the county split off from Genesee County in 1808, there was no county government until 1818. Before that, the county was administered from Belmont and Buffalo.
2. That county government was established in what’s now Ellicottville, though it was then called Hebe. The county seat wouldn’t move to Little Valley until the 1860’s.
3. Before the American Revolution, the area that would become Cattaraugus County was claimed by Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.
4. A number of towns in the county are named after agents of the Holland Land Company, a Dutch syndicate that bought land in Western New York as an investment in the late 18th century. Ellicottville, Franklinville, Otto and East Otto all got their names this way.
5. The Onoville Marina on the Allegheny Reservoir is the largest inland marina in New York state.
6. Little Valley and Great Valley were named to compare the two tributaries of the Allegheny that run through those communities.
7. The county seat moved to Little Valley because the village had a railroad line–Ellicottville did not.
8. Salamanca is named after the 19th century Spanish nobleman, José de Salamanca. It was once a thriving railroad hub, with the Erie, B&O and Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway all having facilities here.
9. In the 2010 census, some 80,000 people lived Cattaraugus County. About 15,000 of those live in Olean.
10. The Town of Olean was originally the entire county, but eventually was divided and split up.
11. The town’s name comes from the Latin “oleum” meaning oil.
12. It was the home of Standard Oil’s western New York headquarters and for a short time was even the world’s largest oil depot.
13. Olean’s founder, Adam Hoops, had hoped that the town would turn into a major transportation hub on the scale of Pittsburgh and Buffalo. He died penniless.
14. The average high school GPA of a freshman entering St. Bonaventure is 3.40.
15. Some 42% of the people living on the Seneca Indian Reservation are of European decent.
16. Some of the filming for the 2010 thriller flick “Unstoppable” was done in Olean and Portville. The movie stared Denzel Washington and Chris Pine.
17. To build the Allegheny Reservoir, the town of Elko had to be flooded. It was settled in 1890 but was absorbed into nearby Coldspring when the reservoir was built.