Octagon Cabins


 These photos have been kicking around for a long time, but I never tire of looking at them. Thanks go to Bill Hecht for cleaning them up.

In case you don’t recognize these, they are the waiting rooms from the old Rochester, Syracuse and Eastern Interurban trolley line.  You can see the location of the stops still attached to the two that are being moved. The top cabin, Stop 2, was from the Auburn and Northern line. From the look of the area, it looks like the pull off area about half way between Port Byron and Throop. Off in the bushes, you can see an old trolley car being used as a house. The second photo was taken on West Brutus. (It is a bit blurry) You can see the downtown area of Weedsport in the background.

 This set of two photos show the stops in place as cabins. Remember that Route 31 was the main drag before the Thruway, so these were right on the main highway. Looking at the photos, it does appear that the cabins were right on the highway. There isn’t much room between the road and the buildings. And where did people park their cars? The upper photo shows the office and store.

After I wrote a short piece on these cabins back in 2009, Mrs. Hitchcock said that the cabins were located right where her house was today; at 105 Rochester.

 The Auburn paper carried a 1940 story about seven of the old stops being purchased at auction and being reused. It appears that the first owner was Fred Thrush. Later papers called these the Octagon Cabins, ice cream stand and gas station. The owner was Sam Harnden. In the late 1950’s Mr. Harnden runs ads selling the business. So what happened to them?