Town One Range One of the Holland Land Company's property in western New York State was organized as a political entity, the Town of Bolivar, in 1825. This book describes in detail the history of the town from the time it was first settled to the present day. Forests were cleared, wild animals hunted, and farms were created. Then, in 1881, oil was discovered, turning a quiet farming community into a boom town. A short period of wild times also brought to the community many of the great technological advances of the nineteenth century: railroads, gas for heat and light, the telegraph and telephone. After thirty years of declining fortunes, more technological advances brought a prolonged period of economic growth and prosperity which lasted for fifty years, with waterflooding and the secondary recovery of oil. That period came to a gradual end beginning in the 1960s. Today Bolivar, New York is the home to a school system which continues to turn out highly accomplished and hard-working graduates, just as it began to do in the 1890s. The story is all here, of wild times, hard times, and good times, of those who began here and reached the national stage, of those who have stayed and through grit and determination have made good lives for themselves.