NEW YORK'S CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY

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CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY FACTS

Area
1,070 sq. mi.

Economy
1. manufacturing; 2. wholesale and retail trade; 3. service; 4. government

Expenses
Taxes: 7% sales; property, from 2.5% (rural) to 4% (urban) of real value House values: $10,000 to $150,000; avg. $32,000 Rentals: $150 to $500 Land: $250 to$ 1,000 per acre

Climate
Two zones: Lake Erie Flood
Plain and Allegheny Plateau
Flood Plain: avg. precipitation,
37", includes 60" snow; avg.
daily highs and lows: January,
32.7°F and 19.5°F;July,79.5°F
and 63.8°F Plateau: avg. precipitation, 42", includes more than 200" snow; avg. daily highs and lows: January, 32°F and 3°F; July, 77°F and 57°F

Population
147,000(1980)

Average Monthly Ways
$1,350(1986)

Education
19 rural and 2 city school systems; 1984 graduation rate, 95.9% compared to NYS avg. of 95.5%. SUNY college, Fredonia, (4year, some Masters programs, music reputation); Jamestown Community College (2year); Jamestown Business College

Density
Less than 25 people per sq. mi., rural; 1,500 per sq. mi., lakeshore; 3,500 per sq. mi., urban

Unemployment
7.5% (1987)(Persistent out-migration of employment-age residents distorts the figure downward.)

Through word of mouth and the crafts grapevine, the demand quickly spread for Fitzgibbon's work—which ranges from repairing horse hitches and steel-wheeled Amish wagons to creating fireplace tools and rigging fixtures for restored sailing vessels to forging massive, meticulous, oak-leafed hallway gates in the homes of the rich. Mitch's sales, plus a way of living that includes wood heat,

a vegetable garden, a second-hand car, modest Westfield Township real estate and school taxes ($700 a year on Fitzgibbon's $31,000 assessed valuation) and not much in the way of dining out or designer clothing or wild weekends in Atlantic City, enables the Fitzgibbon family to live well, securely, very comfortably in Chautauqua County.

"Your medium friend was exactly right in what she said about the low cost of living here," Mitch smiles as he forges and bends, forges and hammers, a red-glowing shaft of steel he is fashioning into a coat hook for me. "Except that there's more to it than things not costing much. You just don't feel the pressure to spend on a lot of things you would if you lived, say, in Shaker Heights or Woodstock. Nobody here pays $25,000 for a car. They're not competing to get their four-year-olds into $3,000 preschool programs.

They're not saying, `Hey, let's go to Aruba for a suntan!' Peg and I almost never take a `real' vacation, in part because it's so low pressure and pastoral righthere. Every day in summer we'walk down to Little Chautauqua Creek for a swim. If we want to hear Chopin or Judy Collins or see Shakespeare, we drive six miles to the Chautauqua Institution. And in winter there's big snow, so we snowshoe or cross-country or go sledding with the boys right here on the dirt road past our house. There's hardly any traffic."

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