The History of Cuba, NY
The Cheese Center of the World
During the early 1900s, Cuba was considered the “cheese center of the world”. The price for cheddar cheese was established at a weekly meeting in Cuba at the Hotel Kinney, a prominent hostelry in its day, and was accepted as “The Price” nationwide. Numerous small cheese factories were scattered across the countryside at various crossroads in the late 1800s and the first cheese company was formed in Cuba, NY in 1871. The company purchased and cured local cheddar cheese and in 1888, the company bought the building where the Cuba Cheese Shoppe is presently located. Ice, harvested during the winter from nearby Cuba Lake provided the cooling for the cheese warehouses.
The First recorded word of Petroleum
In 1927, one of the largest crowds ever assembled in Cuba witnessed a ceremony at the Seneca Oil Spring commemorating the first recorded word of Petroleum in North America. In 1627, a Franciscan Friar, Joseph de la Roche d’Alion, visited the site as a guest of the Seneca Indians and wrote to his superior in France about the oily substance on the spring water. Three hundred years later, on July 23, 1927, the NY State Education Department and the NY State Oil Producers Association dedicated a monument there describing the history of the oil industry in America.
Birthplace of Charles Ingalls
Charles Ingalls, the father of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of the popular ” The Little House in the Prairie” books, was born on a farm in the North Cuba area. Several members of the Ingalls family had settled there prior to 1835, and several brothers all had adjoining farmlands. It is not known exactly where the home was located wherein Charles Ingalls was born, but several homes still standing in the area are known to have been built around the era and were owned by various members of the Ingalls family.
You can visit the gravesite of Charles Ingalls’s grandmother, Margaret Delano Ingalls at the North Cuba Cemetery.
Find more about Cuba by using self-guided tour of Cuba!
A big thank you to our town historians Dave Crowly and Tom Taylor for keeping our history alive!