Bolivar Central School - Gusher Yearbook (Bolivar, NY)

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fffeVl meccsw h WJ June 1931 What a commencement for the new school! Our Senior Class will be the largest yet to graduate from Bolivar's schools, there being 27 graduates, all receiving diplomas ranging from Commercial, Vocational, Academic, to Classical. The class is surely worthy of being remembered as the first to be graduated from the new Bolivar Central School. Thus passed our first year in the new B. C. S., teeming with activity. Some other of the year's epoch-making dates were: the school movies, Junior and Senior dances, B. C. S. track team's journey to Buffalo, interclass basketball and track meet, and especially those hilarious school assemblies which Miss Tallman seemed so capable of producing in less than ten minutes. The first school year is steeped in action, never without motion. No sooner would one event pass happily over, then in its stead would rise a new center of interest. Let it be always so. Like the embers of a glowing fire, at first exuberant, crackling, let not our life be sunk to lethargy and inactivity. So fine a school would never merit such degradation. Let us look ahead, to catch the all-pervasive glory to be ours. Our building, at present unadorned, will become within a few years, the most attractive center of town life. Plans are being conceived for a beautiful campus, affording vistas of rolling lawns and green growing things, retaining the atmosphere of some native woodland haunt, restored to a far worthier position. With the building’s splendid equipment, it will be the scene of all future town and school athletics. Its handsome auditorium will witness many scenes of emotional grandeur. Perhaps there will be new clubs formed, to vary the life of Bolivar. In future years our school will become a throbbing heart, a life-giving instrument to our town from which will flow the interests of all men. Certainly with such views before us, inevitable, we can allow our thoughts and plans to reach upward, outward, to grasp the greatest that this supreme enterprise, this magnificent school, has to offer. Sesqui-Centennial of the Richburg Hill Gusher Since T he Gusher is named for the chief activity of Bolivar, it is fitting that in it, on this year, 1931, the sesqui-centennial of “The Richburg Hill Gusher” should be commemorated. On April, 18, 1881, half a century ago, John Moran drilled in the Richburg Hill Gusher, and ushered into Allegany County one of the largest wells in its history. This discovery attracted people from all sections of the country to this locality. Immediately, Richburg and Bolivar became tbe center of the oil excitement. In a short time houses were built along the east side of the highway between the two villages, and on the west following the valley were pipe line storage tanks, railroad tracks, and a refinery a short distance from North Main St. (Bolivar),on the Salt Rising road. Several test wells had been drilled in different parts of the county and at this time in the township of Bolivar. The Elliott well on lot No. 5, Williams fe? Morse on lot No. 20, located near the California Mill, Duke is1 Johnson on lot No. 13 were being drilled. Mr. Moran entered the oil business at Pithole, Pennsylvania shortly after the discovery of the Drake well at Titusville, and acquired production there, before moving his family to Friendship, N. Y. in 1880. Later they moved to Bolivar where his family of nine children was reared, and his widow still resides. He died June 5th, 1904.

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 ctre .€€JSfieft. Class of 1931 Robert Sawyer Ruth Harrington Mary K. Dougherty Elizabeth Bartley Colors Orchid and Green President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Motto Deeds not Words I 18 I