Feature Photo: Generic1139, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Jamestown occupies a distinctive place in the history of Western New York. Located at the southern end of Chautauqua Lake along the Chadakoin River, it grew from a lumber settlement into a manufacturing city known for its furniture factories, skilled craftspeople, and busy downtown. Swedish immigrants and their descendants were particularly important to the furniture industry, which helped earn Jamestown its reputation as the “Furniture Capital of the World.” The city also produced voting machines, metalworking tools, and other products sold far beyond Chautauqua County.
That industrial history is only part of the story. Jamestown also produced people whose accomplishments reached the Supreme Court, professional sports, television, popular music, and American literature. Lucille Ball’s television work helped change situation comedy; Robert H. Jackson went from practicing law in the city to prosecuting leading Nazi officials at Nuremberg; and naturalist Roger Tory Peterson turned his childhood interest in the birds around Jamestown into a new approach to identifying wildlife. The alternative rock group 10,000 Maniacs began here as well, bringing several local musicians to national attention.
The city has not forgotten these connections. The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum and National Comedy Center celebrate its place in entertainment history, while the Robert H. Jackson Center, Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and Fenton History Center preserve very different parts of Jamestown’s past. Each institution tells a story that began in the same relatively small Western New York community.
The 25 people below were born in Jamestown, grew up there, or established significant early roots in the city and its immediate surrounding communities. Those connections are not all identical: some spent most of their childhood elsewhere, while others lived or worked in Jamestown for decades. What makes the list interesting is not merely where these people were born, but the range of paths that led from Jamestown to national and international recognition.
1. Lucille Ball
Born in Jamestown on August 6, 1911, Lucille Ball grew up in the nearby lakeside village of Celoron and forever changed the landscape of American entertainment. As the star and producer of I Love Lucy, she helped establish the filmed, multicamera sitcom as a television standard and became one of the first women to lead a major television production company, Desilu Productions, which produced classics like Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. She never forgot her Chautauqua County roots, and today Jamestown honors her legacy with the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum and the National Comedy Center, drawing comedy fans from around the globe.
Ball’s relationship with the Jamestown area was more than a passing biographical detail. She spent formative years in nearby Celoron, and visitors to the region still encounter her story in the museums devoted to Lucy and Desi Arnaz. The filmed television production techniques developed on I Love Lucy were collaborative achievements, involving Arnaz and cinematographer Karl Freund, among others. Ball’s later leadership at Desilu was nevertheless groundbreaking in an entertainment industry where women rarely controlled production companies of that size.
2. Roger Goodell
As the Commissioner of the National Football League since 2006, Roger Goodell is one of the most prominent executives in American professional sports. Born in Jamestown on February 19, 1959, he spent his early childhood in the city while his father, Charles Goodell, represented Western New York in the U.S. Congress. Goodell began his NFL career as an administrative intern in 1982 and rose through the ranks to oversee the league’s massive media expansion, international growth, and major changes to broadcasting, scheduling, and league operations, all while maintaining strong family ties to the Chautauqua Lake region.
His Jamestown childhood did not encompass his entire upbringing. The Goodell family moved to Bronxville in Westchester County in 1971, and Roger graduated from high school there before studying economics at Washington & Jefferson College. His path into professional football administration began not on the field but through persistent applications for an opportunity at the league office. As commissioner, he has also faced disputes involving player safety, discipline, and the NFL’s business practices, making his position one of considerable scrutiny as well as influence.
3. Natalie Merchant
Possessing one of the most distinctive and soulful voices in modern music, Natalie Merchant was born in Jamestown on October 26, 1963. In 1981, while working at a local health food store and taking classes at Jamestown Community College, she joined the fledgling local band that would become 10,000 Maniacs. After leading the alternative rock pioneers to platinum success with albums like In My Tribe and Our Time in Eden, she launched a successful solo career in 1995 with her multi-platinum debut album, Tigerlily, cementing her legacy as a literary folk-rock icon.
Merchant was still a teenager when the Jamestown group began experimenting with its sound, and the band’s early success grew out of college radio, independent recordings, and extensive touring. By the time of In My Tribe in 1987, 10,000 Maniacs had found an audience well beyond Western New York. Merchant’s solo work showed that the literate lyrics and folk influences associated with her early band could sustain a separate artistic career. The group’s Jamestown beginnings remain among the city’s most important contributions to popular music.
4. Nick Sirianni
Born in Jamestown on June 15, 1981, Nick Sirianni grew up in a family synonymous with local Chautauqua County athletics, graduating from Southwestern Central High School where his father Fran and brother Jay both served as head football coaches. After winning three NCAA Division III national championships as a wide receiver at Mount Union, Sirianni climbed the NFL coaching ladder with the Chiefs, Chargers, and Colts before being named head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021. He has since guided the franchise to two Super Bowl appearances, winning Super Bowl LIX against the Kansas City Chiefs in February 2025.
Sirianni’s own playing career was briefly threatened by a serious leg problem at Mount Union, but he recovered and became a productive receiver. After graduation, he built his coaching career through years as an assistant, gaining experience with receivers and passing offenses before Philadelphia hired him to lead the team. His rise gave Southwestern Central High School an extraordinary place in NFL coaching history: a school in the Jamestown area helped shape a future Super Bowl-winning head coach.
5. Robert H. Jackson
Though born just across the state line in Pennsylvania, Robert H. Jackson graduated from Frewsburg High School, then studied for an additional year at Jamestown High School, and built an important part of his early legal career practicing law in Jamestown. Appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, he authored some of the most eloquent opinions in American constitutional history, including the landmark free speech ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. In 1945, he took a leave from the bench to serve as the Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, helping establish the legal framework for prosecuting major Nazi war criminals.
Jackson’s legal education followed an unconventional route. He read law with established attorneys, attended Albany Law School for additional study, and eventually developed a respected Jamestown practice. In Washington, he served as solicitor general and attorney general before joining the Supreme Court. His subsequent work at Nuremberg helped articulate principles of accountability for wartime atrocities. The Robert H. Jackson Center on East Fourth Street in Jamestown preserves that unusually wide-ranging legal legacy.
6. Nick Carter
Before becoming an international teen idol as a member of the Backstreet Boys—one of the best-selling vocal groups of the modern pop era—Nickolas Gene Carter was born in Jamestown on January 28, 1980. During his early childhood, his parents operated the Yankee Rebel Lounge, a bar in nearby Westfield, before relocating the family to Ruskin, Florida, when Nick was four years old. From those early Western New York beginnings, Carter went on to dominate late-1990s pop radio with hits like “I Want It That Way” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”
The Carter family moved to Florida when Nick was very young, so his Jamestown connection should not be confused with a long local childhood. He began performing in Florida and joined the Backstreet Boys as a teenager. The group’s breakthrough brought hit singles including “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” and “I Want It That Way,” along with the worldwide popularity of late-1990s boy-band music. His birthplace, however, remains a surprising Western New York connection for fans who associate the singer entirely with Florida and the international pop scene.
7. Roger Tory Peterson
Widely celebrated by conservationists as a pioneer of modern birdwatching and conservation, Roger Tory Peterson was born in Jamestown on August 28, 1908. Growing up exploring the woods and ravines around the city, he developed an obsession with wildlife art while working as a decorator painting floral designs on wooden cabinets in Jamestown’s furniture factories. In 1934, he published his revolutionary book, A Field Guide to the Birds, popularizing a practical system of bird identification based on illustrated field marks to help everyday people identify species in the wild. Today, the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown preserves his artwork and conservation legacy.
The inspiration for Peterson’s life’s work appeared early. As a boy, he found what looked like a dead northern flicker clinging to a tree; when he touched it, the bird suddenly flew away. Years later, his first field guide offered compact illustrations and distinguishing marks that could actually be used outdoors. Its first printing sold out quickly. His achievement was to make the pleasures and disciplines of bird identification accessible to people who did not have formal training in ornithology.
8. Brad Anderson
Every Sunday newspaper reader who ever laughed at the chaotic antics of a giant Great Dane owes a debt to Jamestown native Brad Anderson. Born in the city in 1924, Anderson served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and studied advertising art at Syracuse University before creating the iconic single-panel comic strip Marmaduke in 1954. He drew the beloved strip for over sixty years, earning the National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and a recreation of his drawing studio is displayed at Jamestown’s National Comedy Center.
Anderson spent much of his childhood in Brocton, another Chautauqua County community, and graduated from school there before serving in the Navy. His strip eventually reached readers across the country, with Marmaduke’s sheer size and mischievous behavior providing the continuing comic premise. The cartoon became so familiar that generations of newspaper readers knew its central character even if they had never heard Anderson’s name. His Jamestown birthplace adds another connection between the city and popular American comedy.
9. Catherine “Kitty” Hershey
Before she helped inspire and build the famous chocolate empire and philanthropic legacy of Hershey, Pennsylvania, Catherine Elizabeth “Kitty” Sweeney was born to Irish immigrant parents in Jamestown on July 6, 1871. While working long hours as a local shop girl, she regularly socialized with friends at A.D. Work’s Confectionery in downtown Jamestown—where she met a traveling Lancaster confectioner named Milton S. Hershey. The two married in 1898, and when Kitty learned they could not have children, she and her husband established the Hershey Industrial School in 1909, later renamed the Milton Hershey School, to provide a home and education for children in need.
Kitty’s story begins far removed from the wealth later associated with Hershey. She left Jamestown High School before completing her final year and worked long hours as a shop clerk to help support her family. After marriage, she became an active partner in Milton’s philanthropic efforts. The Hersheys’ school initially offered a home and education to boys who had lost parental support; it later grew into a far larger institution. The school still acknowledges Catherine’s central role in its founding vision.
10. Reuben Fenton
One of the most influential political figures in 19th-century New York, Reuben Eaton Fenton was born in Chautauqua County in 1819 and made Jamestown the center of much of his adult and political life. Serving as a U.S. Congressman during the Civil War, governor of New York from 1865 through 1868, and later a U.S. Senator, Fenton was known across the state as “The Soldiers’ Friend” for his tireless relief efforts for returning Union veterans. During his time as governor, he abolished tuition charges for New York public schools and signed the charter founding Cornell University; his historic Italianate villa in Jamestown now operates as the Fenton History Center.
Fenton was born in the Town of Carroll rather than in Jamestown itself. His work on behalf of Union soldiers and their families brought him the nickname “The Soldiers’ Friend,” and his career eventually included service in both houses of Congress. Jamestown became closely identified with his political and family life. The mansion that he commissioned in the 1860s now houses the Fenton History Center, giving the public a direct link to the community’s nineteenth-century history.
11. Charles Goodell
Born in Jamestown on March 16, 1926, Charles Ellsworth Goodell was a principled statesman who practiced law in his hometown before winning a special election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1959. In September 1968, following the tragic assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed Goodell to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat. Although a Republican, Goodell became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War during his brief Senate service, sponsoring legislation to cut off funding for American military operations in Southeast Asia even at the cost of his own political career.
Goodell’s political independence became most visible in the debate over American involvement in Vietnam. His opposition put him at odds with important elements of the Republican establishment. He lost a three-way Senate election in 1970 to Conservative Party candidate James L. Buckley, ending his time in the Senate. His son Roger later became commissioner of the NFL, giving one Jamestown family two nationally prominent figures whose careers could hardly have been more different.
12. Willis R. Whitney
Born in Jamestown on August 22, 1868, chemist Willis Rodney Whitney is recognized by historians of science as one of the important pioneers of organized industrial research. After earning his undergraduate degree from MIT and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Leipzig, he joined General Electric at the beginning of the twentieth century to lead the company’s pioneering Research Laboratory in Schenectady. Under his long leadership, the lab revolutionized electric lighting, X-ray technology, and radio vacuum tubes, transforming American innovation from the work of lone inventors into collaborative scientific enterprise.
Whitney’s contribution was not a single device or one spectacular patent. It was the idea of maintaining a permanent laboratory where trained specialists could investigate difficult technical questions over time. That approach helped General Electric improve products while pursuing basic scientific discoveries. Whitney’s work in Schenectady brought him into the center of American industrial innovation, a remarkable development for someone born in the furniture-making city of Jamestown before the electrical industry became a defining force in modern life.
13. Stan Lundine
Born in Jamestown on February 4, 1939, Stanley Nelson Lundine made his mark as one of Upstate New York’s most effective pragmatic politicians. Elected mayor in 1969 and taking office in 1970 at age 30, he gained national acclaim for forging a groundbreaking Labor-Management Committee that helped labor and business leaders cooperate during a difficult period for local manufacturers. In 1976, he became the first Democrat in over a century to represent a Southern Tier congressional district, and he later served two terms as Lieutenant Governor of New York alongside Governor Mario Cuomo from 1987 to 1994.
The labor-management initiative grew from an immediate local crisis. Factory closings, job losses, and strained relationships between employers and unions threatened Jamestown’s economic stability. Lundine helped bring these groups into continuing discussions rather than treating every dispute as an isolated confrontation. The approach became a model studied elsewhere and was influential in his later work in Congress. His story is particularly rooted in Jamestown because the accomplishments that first brought him wider attention were attempts to protect his hometown’s industrial economy.
14. Dennis Drew
Born in Jamestown on August 8, 1957, keyboardist Dennis Drew has been one of the longest-serving founding members of the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs. While working as a radio production director and mobile DJ in Jamestown in 1981, Drew joined forces with local musicians to form the group, helping craft the signature organ-and-piano textures heard on enduring hits like “These Are Days,” “Trouble Me,” and “Because the Night.” Beyond touring worldwide, Drew has remained deeply invested in the Jamestown area’s musical and radio communities.
Drew’s contribution went beyond playing keyboards. He helped establish a college radio station in Jamestown, creating access to new wave and alternative records that influenced the band’s musical direction. The musicians made independent recordings before signing with Elektra, and Drew remained closely associated with the group through changes in membership and vocalists. He also worked in community radio. In a city whose manufacturing history is often discussed more than its music scene, Drew’s career shows how Jamestown itself became a starting point for a significant alternative-rock movement.
15. Rob Buck
Born in Jamestown on August 1, 1958, the late Robert Norman Buck was the lead guitarist whose chime-like, melodic playing defined the unmistakable sound of 10,000 Maniacs. Writing or co-writing music for memorable songs including “Hey Jack Kerouac” and “What’s the Matter Here?,” Buck blended British post-punk influences with classic American folk-rock. He remained with the Jamestown-founded band through its various iterations until his untimely passing in December 2000 at the age of 42.
Buck’s contribution was especially important because 10,000 Maniacs did not rely on guitar virtuosity for its effect. His chiming parts, careful melodic choices, and arrangements gave the group a recognizable sound beneath Merchant’s vocals. He continued with the band after Merchant left for a solo career, when Mary Ramsey became its lead singer. For listeners tracing the musical roots of 10,000 Maniacs, Buck’s guitar is as identifying a feature as the words and melodies that made their recordings famous.
16. John Lombardo
Born in Jamestown on September 30, 1952, guitarist and songwriter John Lombardo was a primary architect of the early literary folk-rock sound that put Jamestown on the international music map. A co-founder of 10,000 Maniacs—originally formed in Jamestown under the name Still Life in 1981—Lombardo mentored a teenage Natalie Merchant and helped write and arrange songs on the band’s early independent releases and its major-label debut, The Wishing Chair. Following his initial departure in 1986, he formed the acclaimed folk duo John & Mary with violinist Mary Ramsey before both rejoined 10,000 Maniacs in the 1990s.
Lombardo had studied at SUNY Geneseo, where he started developing his skills in bands before taking part in Jamestown’s emerging rock scene. The early Maniacs made their own recordings and relied on independent promotion and college radio before securing a major-label contract. Lombardo helped give those early songs their distinctive combination of folk songwriting and alternative-rock energy. His later work showed that the band’s musical influence extended beyond any one lineup or period of commercial success.
17. Irv Noren
Before becoming an All-Star Major League Baseball outfielder and World Series champion as both a player and later a coach, Irving Arnold Noren was born in Jamestown on November 29, 1924, where his family operated a local bakery on Newland Avenue. After moving to California as a pre-teen, Noren signed professional contracts in both basketball (playing briefly for the NBL’s Chicago American Gears) and baseball. Over an 11-year MLB career from 1950 to 1960, he batted .275, earned an All-Star nod in 1954, and served as a key platoon outfielder for Casey Stengel’s New York Yankees teams of the 1950s.
His family’s move to California took Noren away from Jamestown at a young age. His athletic ability opened opportunities in more than one professional sport, but it was baseball that produced his longest career. Before joining New York, he played for Washington; after his Yankees years, he continued with other major-league teams and later coached. He remains a particularly interesting Jamestown native for baseball historians because his life connects an Upstate New York birthplace to the Yankees’ championship period under Casey Stengel.
18. Jud Strunk
Born Justin Roderick Strunk Jr. in Jamestown on June 11, 1936, Jud Strunk became a popular country-pop songwriter and television performer of the early 1970s. Putting his five-string banjo and Down East humor to work, he became a regular cast member on the television sketch-comedy series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 1973, his sentimental acoustic ballad “Daisy a Day” became a crossover hit, reaching the top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 before his life was cut short in a vintage airplane crash in 1981.
The banjo-playing performer projected a distinctly New England style of storytelling, even though he had been born in Jamestown and spent much of his boyhood in Buffalo. His songs combined plainspoken humor and sentiment rather than the louder production heard on much popular music of the period. “Daisy a Day” became his signature recording, reaching listeners well beyond country radio. His Jamestown connection is one of those unexpected biographical details that makes a regional famous-people list worthwhile.
19. Mitchell Anderson
Born in Jamestown on August 21, 1961, where his mother owned a local retail shop and his father worked in business, Mitchell Anderson studied music and theater at Williams College and The Juilliard School before heading to Hollywood. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he became a familiar face in film and television, starring in the thriller Jaws: The Revenge and playing recurring roles as violin teacher Ross Werkman on Party of Five and Dr. Jack McGuire on Doogie Howser, M.D. After making headlines as an openly gay actor speaking publicly about his identity in 1996, he later pivoted to a successful second career as a restaurateur in Atlanta.
His decision to speak publicly about being gay in the mid-1990s placed him among television actors discussing identity openly at a time when the industry offered relatively few prominent examples. After years of acting, Anderson pursued a second career in food and hospitality. He became involved with MetroFresh in Atlanta, a restaurant business far removed from the television studios that had made his face familiar. The move illustrates how a creative career can develop in directions that early audiences would never expect.
20. Randy Merrill
While music fans may not recognize him on the street, virtually everyone has heard the work of Jamestown-area mastering engineer Randy Merrill. An alumnus of Falconer Central School, Jamestown Community College, and SUNY Fredonia’s Sound Recording Technology program, Merrill is a senior mastering engineer at Sterling Sound and an accomplished behind-the-scenes contributor to modern recorded music. He has won multiple Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Album of the Year, putting the final sonic polish on landmark albums for Adele, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Paul McCartney.
Merrill’s work illustrates why some influential music professionals are rarely photographed on an album cover. Mastering is one of the final stages of making a record ready for release, balancing the finished sound and preparing recordings for different formats. After studying at Jamestown Community College and SUNY Fredonia, Merrill worked in major mastering studios and built credits on prominent pop and rock releases. His Grammy recognition came through those recordings. His strongest local connection is to the broader Jamestown–Falconer area and the region’s music-education institutions, rather than a documented lifelong residence within the city itself.
21. Julie Anne Peters
Born in Jamestown on January 16, 1952, Julie Anne Peters moved with her family to Colorado during childhood and later became a trailblazing force in young adult literature. After spending a decade working as a computer systems engineer, she turned to writing full-time and published over twenty novels for children and teens. Her 2004 novel, Luna, made publishing history as a groundbreaking mainstream young adult novel centered on a transgender teenager, earning a Stonewall Book Award Honor and opening the door for modern LGBTQ+ representation in teen fiction.
Peters entered publishing after working in computer systems and brought a distinctive perspective to books for teenagers. Alongside Luna, she wrote Keeping You a Secret and other novels about young people trying to understand themselves and their relationships. Her work reached audiences at a time when LGBTQ characters were still relatively uncommon in mainstream young adult fiction. Although she left Jamestown as a child, the city’s connection to her life is firmly established by her birthplace.
22. Marshall Arisman
Born in Jamestown in 1938 and raised on a local Chautauqua County dairy farm, Marshall Arisman grew up to become one of the most influential American painters, illustrators, and art educators of the twentieth century. A graduate of the Pratt Institute, his striking, expressionistic artwork frequently graced the pages of The New York Times, Time, Omni, and Rolling Stone, and was represented in major museum collections. He founded and directed the MFA “Illustration as Visual Essay” program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
Arisman’s paintings often stood apart from conventional commercial illustration. He favored expressive images that could be unsettling, symbolic, or deliberately ambiguous, and he insisted that illustration was capable of telling complex stories. Through his teaching he influenced artists who would go on to careers in magazines, books, and other media. His journey from a Chautauqua County dairy farm to influential art classrooms in Manhattan adds a very different artistic figure to Jamestown’s history.
23. Pandora Boxx
Born Michael Steck in Jamestown in 1972, the entertainer known around the world as Pandora Boxx spent part of childhood in Western New York and later grew up farther east in the state before launching a performance career in Rochester and eventually Los Angeles. Rising to international prominence in 2010 on the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race—where she was named Miss Congeniality—Boxx was heavily inspired by fellow Jamestown native Lucille Ball, cultivating a campy, comedic persona that led to multiple appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, off-Broadway theatrical runs, and a successful career as a comedy writer and recording artist.
The performer developed a drag and comedy act in Rochester before finding a national audience on television. Appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race and later All Stars helped make Pandora Boxx known for humorous characters and theatrical presentation. Boxx has also worked in live performance, writing, and music. The Jamestown connection is a birthplace rather than a claim that the entertainer spent an entire childhood in the city, a distinction important to this list.
24. Jaysean Paige
Born in Jamestown on July 30, 1994, Jaysean Paige first electrified local basketball crowds as a high-scoring guard at Jamestown High School before finishing his prep career in Kentucky and signing to play under coach Bob Huggins at West Virginia University. Named the unanimous Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year and a Second-Team All-Big 12 selection in 2016, Paige went on to build an international professional basketball career. He achieved his NBA dream when he signed with the Detroit Pistons during the 2021–22 season and later competed in professional leagues and international basketball.
Paige’s route to the NBA was far from direct. After junior-college basketball and his career at West Virginia, he played for professional teams in several countries and spent time in the NBA’s developmental league. His opportunity with Detroit resulted in one regular-season NBA appearance in January 2022, a specific milestone for a former Jamestown High School athlete. He has also played in Puerto Rican and international basketball, extending his career beyond that brief NBA opportunity.
25. Stephen Carlson
Born in Jamestown on December 12, 1996, Stephen Carlson was a multi-sport standout at Jamestown High School, where he helped lead the Red Raiders to a New York State Class AA championship in 2014 and won the Connolly Cup as Western New York’s top high school football player. After a college career as a wide receiver at Princeton University, he transitioned to tight end and signed with the Cleveland Browns as an undrafted free agent in 2019. Carlson made hometown headlines by catching his first NFL touchdown pass against the Pittsburgh Steelers on national television and later joined the Chicago Bears organization.
Carlson arrived in the NFL without being selected in the draft, a difficult route for any player attempting to earn a roster spot. Cleveland used him as a tight end, and his touchdown against Pittsburgh provided a nationally televised moment for Jamestown fans who had followed his high-school career. His later time in the Chicago Bears organization added another professional chapter. The story connects a Western New York high-school championship program with the demanding transition from Ivy League football to the NFL.
Jamestown’s place in American history is not limited to the furniture industry or the entertainers associated with its museums. Its influence reaches into constitutional law, publishing, popular music, science, professional sports, and public service. For a broader look at people who began their lives in communities across the state, read our article on 25 famous people from Upstate New York.
You may also enjoy additional articles on Upstate New York such as…..
10 Historic Small Towns in Upstate New York Worth Visiting
10 Submerged and Vanished Communities of Upstate New York
12 Most Charming Main Streets in Upstate New York That Feel Like a Movie Set
The Historic Ghost Signs of Upstate New York Main Streets
