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Before the Internet, There Was the Information Booth
by Stephanie Olsen
It was the summer of ’68 – so much going on in the world, outside Yates County – the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the war in Vietnam. I spent that summer sitting in a tiny structure on the corner of Elm and Liberty Streets, at the ARCO station, handing out brochures and answering out-of-towners’ questions inside the Penn Yan Chamber of Commerce Information Booth.
Back story: Built in 1962 to look like a corncrib, with windows on each side and a door at the end, the purpose of the booth was to help tourists visiting Penn Yan find lodging, good food and directions to local sites of interest. The personal touch was the booth attendant, who could answer almost any question! And in 1968 Helen Linkhorn, Chamber secretary, Kathy Josselyn (fellow alumna from the PYA class of 1967) and I were those attendants.
That year the booth was open Monday-Friday 10 AM-6PM, Saturdays and Sundays 10 AM – 7 PM, from June 21 to Labor Day. When Kathy and I started in June, we had very much enjoyed the two-day tour of the Finger Lakes area (with a hotel overnight – heady stuff for two 18-year-olds) that the Finger Lakes Association coordinated with new tourist information employees across the region. Kathy almost got to pilot a glider plane at Harris Hill – but the weather turned bad so she never got the chance (which did not bother her at all!) We both felt chock-full of information about the Finger Lakes region when we got back, and were eager to start our stints in the little booth by the gas station. An amusing aside: the Chronicle Express article announcing the opening of the booth referred to Kathy and me as “Miss” and included the names of our parents!
I worked in the booth for three summers – with Barb McGough in 1969 and Polly Hoban in 1970. Barb Hatch, Carol Nash, Sue Andersen, Mary Ann Breuer, Krista Sutherland, and Pam Orr were other “young women,” as we were referred to, who imparted info over the years. Other Chamber personnel who shared shifts were Lois Fitch, Susan Gorham, Esther Nash, Beverly Salisbury and Marge Madden.
Kathy and Barb and I enjoyed our jobs very much. We loved helping others and showing off our county. We had to keep records of every encounter we had: where the people were from, what they wanted and what we gave them of assistance or recommendations. We took our job very seriously. On the other hand, we enjoyed watching life revolve around our tiny enclosure – all the locals who walked by or stopped to chat or honked when they saw us. We were also very appreciative of Howard Woodruff, who owned the service station during our years at the booth – he was always very kind and so were his “boys,” the young men who worked for Mr. Woodruff. We never, ever worried about security!
We all were proud of being experts at our jobs. Barb especially remembers explaining the difference between East Bluff Drive and West Bluff Drive versus East Lake Road and West Lake Road and all its variants. We knew who to call if we didn’t know the answer: the Chamber office – we had a phone right in the booth that was an extension number for the Chamber – same telephone number as in 2025!
Like all good things, the information booth and its staffing were phased out slowly but surely. In 1975 the booth was vandalized and was then moved to the other side of the street, to the Columbia Bank parking lot. By that time, the Chamber was looking for a new, permanent office, which would take over the services performed by those in the booth. By 1977, the booth was to be found at the Copp service station at Lake and Brown Steets, where it made its home for a few more summers. In 1985, though, the Chamber decided to loan the booth to the Four Seasons Developmental Corp., in Canandaigua, to be placed somewhere at a Thruway rest stop.
There the story ends for the little house that held so much information, and such eager, enthusiastic workers.
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