Morrison Tract in Yates, eyed for expanded town park, stirred public discord in the past
This headline from The Buffalo News, Sept. 10, 1981, refers to the Morrison Road site in the Town of Yates.
By Catherine Cooper, Orleans County Historian
“Illuminating Orleans” – Volume 4, No. 18
YATES – The Town of Yates will hold a referendum on Thursday to decide whether the town may acquire 153.3 acres of land from NYSEG for $700,000 using grant funds for public recreational use. The site is part of a larger area referred to as the Morrison Tract, a rural lakeside property which has had a dramatic and often contentious history.
The first recorded refences to the area are to an active bootlegging operation during Prohibition which was operated by Joseph J. Winghart, his wife Mayme and brother Bernie. They supplied the Lyndonville area and made deliveries to Niagara Falls. They also operated a speakeasy at a farmhouse on the corner of Lake Road and Morrison Road in the Town of Yates.
The Prohibition era has since been romanticized, but it was a dangerous and volatile time. The Wingharts were associated with “The Black Hand Gang” of Niagara Falls, who assured them of a market and of “back-up” if the need arose.
The farmhouse later became the location of Winghart’s Grill. Following several changes of ownership, it opened as Lakeshore Villa in 1959. Owner, Joseph Perry, was killed in an automobile accident in 1960. It subsequently operated as the Park House, this was destroyed in a “spectacular blaze” on March 26, 1981.
Beginning in the 1960s, NYSEG acquired parcels of land totaling 800 acres in the Town of Yates area bounded by the Lake Ontario shoreline, Foss Road and Morrison Road. Referred to as the Morrison Road site, it was selected as a possible location for the construction of an atomic power generating station in 1972.
However, local public opposition was loud and clear. The discovery of an earthquake fault near the area caused NYSEG to abandon plans for Yates and concentrate on a location in Somerset instead.
In September 1981, William Lyman, Chairman of the Orleans County Industrial Development Authority (COIDA), announced the potential development of a shipping port at the site.
Cross-Lake Shipping, formerly Ro-Ro of Toronto, proposed to operate a truck trailer ferry service from Toronto to the Morrison Road site to import a wide variety of raw materials and products to the US, thereby avoiding the substantial fees then levied for overland cross-border transportation.
The plan was quite ambitious. Sixty workers would be employed on the construction of this $8.5 million port which would include a double pier that could accommodate barges capable of carrying 120 semi-trailers.
When fully operational, 120 workers would be employed. Housing, retail and hotels would surely follow, and the development would be beneficial for the Town of Yates tax base.
Attractive as it might have seemed, local residents balked at the prospect of several hundred tractor trailers containing unknown contents traversing rural roads and narrow canal bridges on a daily basis.
A committee of Yates residents formed to oppose COIDA’s proposal. As it transpired, Ro-Ro was unable to secure adequate financial backing and the proposed project was dropped.
Subsequently, the Morrison Road tract was one of two sites in the town considered as a possible location for a state-operated toxic and hazardous waste plant. A site in Cayuga County was chosen instead.
In 1986, a group of citizens and investors formed the Ontario Shore Land Committee which proposed to purchase the site for multi-use development: camping, flea market, a pioneering village, and senior citizen housing as well as light industrial and commercial growth.
While these development proposals highlighted the potential of the site, they also exposed the town’s vulnerability when faced with the power of state agencies. Though local opposition played a part in the dismissal of the atomic power generating station and the port proposal, ultimately other external factors determined the decisions. The success of either of these proposals would have drastically altered the rural nature of the town.
It is remarkable that such a small location should have been the site of so much discord. Some places have a strange energy. Perhaps it is not surprising that trees nearby produce shoe-fruit.
