Binghamton, NY news and local guide

The Chenango Canal, finished in 1837, linked Binghamton to the Erie Canal and spurred early industry, and the Erie Railroad to Jersey City in 1849 and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western soon after made it a transportation center. The New York State Inebriate Asylum, opened in 1858, was the first institution in the country to treat alcoholism as a disease. Binghamton became a city in 1867 and was nicknamed the Parlor City for its stately homes. In the 1880s it was the second-largest cigar maker in the United States, and by the early 1920s the shoemaker Endicott Johnson, known for welfare capitalism, was the region's largest employer, drawing so many immigrants that the area was called the Valley of Opportunity. In 1913, 31 people died in the Binghamton Clothing Company fire, which led to reforms of the state fire code. Floods in 1935 and 1936 led the city to build flood walls along both rivers, and IBM, founded in greater Binghamton, grew into a global technology leader during and after World War II. Sources Wikipedia: Binghamton, New York