"You are now free to move about the country." While this may be a contemporary tag line to an airline TV commercial, the same line could’ve been used in 1869, when the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad was completed between Albany and Binghamton.

Gone were times, when if you lived in Oneonta, it often took a couple of days to travel by stagecoach to Albany or Binghamton. Now the A&S could get to either of these cities in a matter of hours. From these points you could connect to destinations in the Northeast and the Midwest.

Another aspect of the completion of the A&S certainly pleased The Oneonta Herald publisher, as it meant new advertising revenue from outside the area. Starting in 1865, ads appeared in The Herald from Albany, and in January 1869, ads from Binghamton debuted.

Not only was there a new ad from the Binghamton Water Cure, there was a short news article that appeared on The Herald’s "Home & Vicinity" page on Jan. 13 describing the business.

"This well known institution continues its beneficient work with Dr. O.V. Thayer, formerly of this (Otsego) county. As it is now within easy reach of Otsego and Delaware we commend it to invalids who need water or other treatment, assuring them from personal experience as a patient and long acquaintance with Dr. Thayer that their needs will be thoroughly and kindly met."

Gerald Smith, Broome County and Binghamton city historian, once wrote that many people believed that natural mineral springs could rejuvenate their health or cure serious medical problems. From the 1850s through 1920s, no less than three of these spas existed in or near greater Binghamton, and with the competition came the need for advertising.

Dr. Orson Thayer opened the Binghamton Water Cure in 1849 at the top of Mount Prospect, which is now a part of the Ely Park golf course. He built a three-story frame building that was used as a hospital for surgery and resort for those who wanted to use the natural mineral springs to help them.

For the next two decades, Thayer operated this facility. He claimed to specialize in women’s ailments. Thayer also offered to remove warts and other skin lesions with the use of concentrated rays of the sun, without any incisions or scars. All of this could be done for between $10 and $16 per week.

Thayer was successful for many years, but sometime in the early 1870s he left his homeopathic practice and moved to California. The business continued, and by the early 1890s was called the Mount Prospect Medical Institute. It was re-established as a place for treatment of inebriety from whatever cause, whether from alcohol, opium or other narcotics. Businessman S. Mills Ely later gave the mountaintop property to the city for a park.

Other spring resorts had been established along or near the A&S Railroad tracks. Dr. S. Andral Kilmer developed a resort near today’s Sanitaria Springs. A popular stop on the stagecoach ride between Afton and Deposit became known as Vallonia Springs. By the 1920s, these resorts, like many others, began to fade in popularity.

Heading in the other direction toward Albany, one could take a spur line from the A&S, later known as the D&H Railroad, to another resort village of note, Sharon Springs.

Whether for better health, business travel and otherwise, a new world opened up when the A&S was completed in 1869.

On Monday: Renovations and improvements abounded at Oneonta’s baseball stadium.

City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com.

His website is

www.oneontahistorian.com.