Bolivar Village

Bolivar Village Hall is located at 252 Main Street, Bolivar NY 14715; phone: 585-928-2234.

Beginnings [1]

Bolivar Village was established at the junction of the Little Genesee and Root Hollow Creeks about the same time as the Town of Bolivar was organized. Both the town and the village remained a sparsely populated rural outpost relying on agriculture and logging until the 1881 discovery of oil, swilling the village's population from several hundred to over 1,000. By 1882, larger reserves of petroleum were discovered in Pennsylvania drawing investment and interest away from the less profitable wells in the Southern Tier, ending the local boom.

1. National Register nomination document, 2002, prepared by Virginia L. Bartos, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Bolivar Free Library, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.