We’re outside Union Station, right in front of the building. 

In the 1800s, the space behind that was occupied by a barn for Utica’s horse-drawn trolley system. Utica was one of only five cities in the country that had a horse drawn trolley.

New York, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Utica. Can you imagine? 1863.

–That’s right in the middle of the Civil War –

Only one of five in the country, and then in 1890, of course, we became electrified and the horses were gone, but that was the barn for the cars and for the horses. When the electric trolleys came through that was the barn for the electric trolleys.

Now if you head right to the corner of Railroad and Main Street, you can see that up on the left side of Union Station,  up about where the first row of second-story windows are, there’s a little metal thing on the building – over on the left. There’s another one way down on the right side of the building. Those were anchors for the cables for the electric trolley.

Now on the other side of Railroad Street the Children’s Museum, is on your right.

That building, which is now home to a great museum for kids, was once the HC Heber Company .

It was a wholesale dry goods company. That’s what this building was built for now you’ll see a lot of. A lot of buildings down here were built here and the wholesale meat houses and the dry goods company. Why? Because this is where transportation was.

Even before railroads, the Erie Canal ran along what’s now Oriskany Street, about two blocks south of this spot. 

Now directly across Main Street from the Children’s Museum with Raliroad Street on your left, there’s a brick building– the Kid’s Oneida Building.

It was built originally for the Utica Daily Press. That’s where the Utica Daily Press – Utica in those days at two newspapers. It had the Observer Dispatch in evening and Daily Press in the morning and this was the Daily Press building. And they chiseled off – it used to say Daily Press right on the top of that entry way there. That marble used to say Daily Press, and it had two pillars with lights on them.

Now if you keep moving down Main Street to the right, there’s park on your right. And there’s also a big mural along the bridge on the left. We’ll come back to that later. For now, we’re going to keep going and pass under the first bridge. Then we’ll stop in between the two bridges, which will be right above us.

Onward!