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From:  "Rushford and Rushford People" by Helen J. W. Gilbert, 1910; Page 517 

  

XX 

RAILROADS 

 

OUR LOST T.V. & C. R.R.

 

The Tonawanda Valley and Cuba Railroad was completed in September, 1882. Its gauge was narrow and its life was short, but it made Rushford boom. In 1883 were built the residences of  Nathaniel Jewell (now owned by Martin Lyon), William O. Kingsbury and Van Rensselaer Jenks,* and in 1884, the Brick Block, the stores of A.M. Taylor and W.W. Merrill, the mill and tenant houses of J.B. Gordon and Son, the Hardy House, and the residences of E.C. Gilbert, H.A. Holden, C.C. Colburn, H.C. Dresser and Charles Gordon. Passengers could leave Rushford in the morning for Attica, take a train for either Buffalo or Rochester, and after spending a day in the city, reach home by ten o'clock at night. Another train left Rushford in the morning for Cuba where it connected with trains either way on the Erie, and returned after their arrival.

The town raised $18,000 for bonds, $1,200 for right of way where it had to be bought, and built the round house. Nearly all the bonds owned by Rushford men were sold in December, 1885, at twenty-four and one-half cents on the dollar. Two strikes for back pay occurred in 1885, one in January and the other in November.  October 16, 1886, trains were discontinued south of Sandusky.

The only fatal accident in Rushford due to the T.V. & C. R.R. (P. 518) was the death of Mr. Kelley, which was caused by the trains running into a washout north of Hardy's. Fred G. Gordon's hand was injured at this time.

The marriages of C.J. Hardaway and Mrs. Delia Hyde Robbins, William Lewis and Mary Claus, George Briggs and Ora Gates, took place in consequence of the coming of the T.V. The family of James Brady, a bridge carpenter, continued to reside in town.

When the track was laid there was great rejoicing, but the grade is all that now remains of the Tonawanda Valley and Cuba Railroad.