The people, places and events that shaped the Valley—from the Mohawk homeland and the Erie Canal to vanished factories, neighborhood landmarks and the food traditions still with us today.
On July 4, 1817, workers turned the first shovelful of the Erie Canal in Rome. Within a decade the ditch remade every town along the Mohawk — and it's still out there, under streets and behind backyards.
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Send today’s view →Have a present-day match for this view — or an old photograph of your own street? Send it in and we'll pair them here. Full story: From ford to boomtown: how Utica became a city.
The county's historical society in Herkimer village — the research home for Remington, cheese-country and Palatine Valley history.
What remains: Museum and research collections in the historic Suiter building.
Read: Ilion and the Remingtons: two centuries at the forge · Nicholas Herkimer: the farmer-general the county is named for
The Barge Canal's giant at Little Falls — about a 40-foot lift, among the world's tallest single-lift locks when it opened in 1918 — beside the mill district reborn as Canal Place.
What remains: The working lock (seasonal navigation), remnants of the 1795 Western Inland canal on Moss Island's flank, and the Canal Place mill district.
Read: Little Falls: the city the river built (and squeezed) · Dug by hand, starting in Rome: how the Erie Canal built the Valley · The canal under your feet
General Nicholas Herkimer's c. 1764 Georgian brick mansion above the Mohawk at Danube, with his grave and monument on the grounds.
What remains: The original house, restored and furnished; grounds, monument and family cemetery.
Read: Nicholas Herkimer: the farmer-general the county is named for · The ravine at Oriskany
The city's story — canal, cheese market and mills — told in a former 1833 bank building downtown.
What remains: Museum collections and exhibits; walking-tour information for the Canal Place district.
The ravine and fields where the Tryon County militia and Oneida allies were ambushed on August 6, 1777 — among the bloodiest days of the Revolution.
What remains: The battlefield landscape is preserved; the 1884 obelisk monument stands above the ravine. Interpretive signage on the grounds.
Read: The ravine at Oriskany · Nicholas Herkimer: the farmer-general the county is named for
The 'Sacred Grove' burial place of Baron von Steuben, the Prussian drillmaster of the Continental Army, on land the state granted him after the Revolution.
What remains: Memorial tomb in the grove and a replica of Steuben's log cabin.
Full-scale reconstruction of the 1758 fort that guarded the Oneida Carrying Place and withstood the 1777 siege — on its original footprint in downtown Rome.
What remains: The fort itself is a 1976 National Park Service reconstruction on the archaeologically excavated original site; the visitor center displays excavated artifacts.
Read: Three weeks in August: the siege of Fort Stanwix · The six-mile portage that made Rome matter · This was never empty land: the Haudenosaunee homeland
The Cold War air base that anchored Rome for five decades — and hosted Woodstock '99 — now a tech park, airfield and drone test site.
What remains: Runways, hangars and base-era buildings repurposed across the park; public roads cross the site. No formal museum on site.
Read: Rome: cheese factories, copper wire and a runway full of history
Thirty-six miles of the enlarged Erie Canal, still watered, with the original towpath as a trail — running from DeWitt east toward Rome.
What remains: Watered canal channel, towpath (now part of the Erie Canalway Trail), aqueduct remnants and canal-era structures along the route.
Read: Dug by hand, starting in Rome: how the Erie Canal built the Valley · The canal under your feet
Museum and archives for the Copper City — from the Carrying Place and canal groundbreaking to Griffiss.
What remains: Exhibits and research collections in downtown Rome.
Read: Rome: cheese factories, copper wire and a runway full of history · The six-mile portage that made Rome matter
The cross-state trail that follows the canal corridor — much of it on original towpath — linking the Valley's canal towns for walkers and cyclists.
What remains: Continuous trail through the Valley as part of the Empire State Trail; interpretive signs mark canal-era sites along the way.
Read: Dug by hand, starting in Rome: how the Erie Canal built the Valley · The canal under your feet
Brewing on Varick Street since 1888 and still family-run — the anchor of Utica's Brewery District and one of America's oldest breweries.
What remains: The working brewery complex; public tours and a tour center (see official site for schedule).
Read: From ford to boomtown: how Utica became a city · Everyone came through Utica
Utica's grand rural cemetery on the southern hills, resting place of canal-era and mill-era Utica — including Governor Horatio Seymour and Vice President James Schoolcraft Sherman.
What remains: The landscaped 19th-century cemetery and its monuments, with views over the city.
Read: From ford to boomtown: how Utica became a city · Sunny Jim: the vice president Utica sent to Washington
George Brewster’s 1923 bronze of Utica’s vice president, at the foot of Memorial Parkway facing the Baron von Steuben statue across Genesee Street.
What remains: The statue and its pedestal, in place on the Parkway.
Read: Sunny Jim: the vice president Utica sent to Washington
The Valley's art museum pairs a landmark modernist building by Philip Johnson (opened 1960) with Fountain Elms, an 1850–52 Italianate mansion of the founding Williams-Proctor families.
What remains: Both buildings, connected as one campus; the collection includes major American art and decorative arts from Utica's mill-wealth era.
The county's memory bank: research library, archives and exhibits covering Utica and the Upper Mohawk Valley since 1876.
What remains: Research library and gallery open to the public; the place to verify (or contribute) almost any Utica-area story on this site.
Read: From ford to boomtown: how Utica became a city · Everyone came through Utica
Frank Woolworth opened his first 'Great Five Cent Store' on Bleecker Street in February 1879. Utica ignored it; it closed within months — and its lessons launched a retail empire.
What remains: Nothing of the store. The exact address and any marker are on our research list.
The 1928 movie palace on Genesee Street, designed by theater architect Thomas Lamb — a survivor of the era when downtown Utica had a row of them — still running as a performing-arts venue.
What remains: The theater, restored and operating; its 'Mexican baroque' interior is largely intact.
Utica's 1914 marble railroad temple, built when a dozen daily expresses stopped here — still a working Amtrak station you can walk into for free.
What remains: The station itself, including the grand concourse with its marble columns and wooden benches; now the Boehlert Transportation Center serving Amtrak and regional transit.
Read: From ford to boomtown: how Utica became a city · Everyone came through Utica
Access and hours change — especially at seasonal state sites. We link official pages instead of printing hours, and each entry shows when we last verified it.
Hungry now? The Eat & Drink guide keeps the current list of who serves the classics well.
Dug by hand, starting in Rome: how the Erie Canal built the Valley
On July 4, 1817, workers turned the first shovelful of the Erie Canal in Rome. Within a decade the ditch remade every town along the Mohawk — and it's still out there, under streets and behind backyards.
This was never empty land: the Haudenosaunee homeland
Long before canals and county lines, the Mohawk Valley was — and remains — homeland to nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The names on our maps are the shortest version of that story.
The six-mile portage that made Rome matter
Between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek lay a few miles of flat ground — the only break in a water route from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. Empires fought over it. Rome sits on top of it.
Three weeks in August: the siege of Fort Stanwix
In the summer of 1777, a British-led army surrounded a patched-up fort where downtown Rome now stands. The garrison never surrendered — and the campaign that was supposed to split the colonies fell apart in the Mohawk Valley.
The ravine at Oriskany
On August 6, 1777, a column of Mohawk Valley farmers marching to relieve Fort Stanwix walked into an ambush. What followed was among the bloodiest days of the Revolution — and a civil war inside the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Nicholas Herkimer: the farmer-general the county is named for
A Palatine German trader with a Georgian brick mansion above the Mohawk, Herkimer led his neighbors into the ravine at Oriskany — and into the county seal.
From ford to boomtown: how Utica became a city
A river crossing named for a ruined African city became, in a few canal-powered decades, one of America's busiest inland towns — then a textile giant, then a place that had to reinvent itself. It's done that more than once.
Rome: cheese factories, copper wire and a runway full of history
The city on the old portage broke ground for the Erie Canal, industrialized America's cheese, rolled its copper, guarded its skies — and hosted Woodstock '99. Rome's résumé is stranger than it gets credit for.
Little Falls: the city the river built (and squeezed)
Where the Mohawk drops forty feet through a rock gorge, everything had to squeeze through: canoes, then canals, then railroads. The squeeze made Little Falls rich — in water power, in cheese, and in one very tall lock.
Ilion and the Remingtons: two centuries at the forge
A young man's rifle barrel became a company that armed the Union, put the first typewriters on desks and carried Ilion's name around the world — until the plant finally went quiet in 2024.
Everyone came through Utica
Welsh printers, Irish canal diggers, German brewers, Italian bakers, Polish millhands, Lebanese peddlers — and, in our own time, refugees from Bosnia to Burma. Utica has always been a city people arrive in.
Riggies, greens, tomato pie, half-moons: where Utica's food actually comes from
The Valley's signature dishes have origin stories ranging from well-documented to cheerfully contested. Here's what's known, what's tradition, and what's still argued about at Sunday dinner.
The canal under your feet
The original Erie Canal didn't skirt the Valley's cities — it ran straight through their downtowns. Then it was filled in and paved over. Here's how to see the ghost.
Sunny Jim: the vice president Utica sent to Washington
James Schoolcraft Sherman was mayor of Utica at twenty-nine, spent twenty years in the House, and was William Howard Taft’s vice president when he died at his Utica home in October 1912. His statue still stands at the foot of the Parkway.
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