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 Paul Bunyan The Mayors of Niagara County’s cities and villages are a pretty thick-skinned bunch. Whether it’s taking the heat for donating city water for a sick child’s swimming pool, or reversing a ban on outdoor fire pits, this group of dedicated men and women often have to take a stand on difficult situations. Most Mayors have a keen political ability to seek the middle ground. But when conscience dictates otherwise, falling off the fence can sometimes leave a nasty bruise. This was the case in 1895 when Niagara Fall’s Mayor Cutler took issue with the electric company in the city. It would seem that the young electric power commission had taken to putting up power poles just about everywhere. The poles were thick as thieves and even included a massive totem on Main Street. Perhaps a better description of the location would be “in” Main Street, as the pole was physically in the roadway on Main Street. It would seem that the fine mayor had had enough of this impediment to traffic and told the utility to company to remove the pole from the thoroughfare, or he would chop it down. The matter lingered for several days as the Niagara Falls Gazette kept pressure on the parties to resolve the matter with expedience. A few more days passed, and then Mayor Cutler summoned Mr. Chappin, superintendent of the utility company, and when Chappin arrived on the scene, Mayor Cutler met him in the street, with axe in hand. It must have looked like the beginnings of a western gunfight, as the two made it clear there was no room for compromise on the matter. The Mayor, spit on his hands, in true axeman fashion, and began to chop. He swung the axe aloft and down it came, cutting clean and sharp into the wood. Faster and faster the axe flew as the smile on Supt. Chappin’s face began to turn to a frown. In a short space of time, the Mayor had cut nearly half-way through the pole. Mr. Chappin soon realized that his fate was doomed and reluctantly waved the white flag and called off Paul Bunyan. The electric company agreed to remove what was left of the pole by noon the next day and hostilities ceased. But the Mayor in his quest to improve travel on Main Street was rather taken aback when the utility company decided they would close the street until the repair of the dangerous situation could be corrected.
Douglas Farley, Director |
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