Yates County Fun Facts

Contents

The Finger Lakes region is chock-full of rich history and culture.

In this series I’m sharing with you all the firsts, important historical events, notable individuals, world records, and occasional quirky roadside attractions I come across in my explorations, organized by county.

Here are some fun facts about Yates County. For random facts about the other 13 Finger Lakes counties, check here: Cayuga, Chemung, Cortland, Livingston, Monroe, Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, Wayne.

I know I’m only scratching the surface of all the cool things to know, so please tell me interesting facts to add! You can comment below or send me a message.

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Yates County Basic Facts

Population: 24,774

County seat: Penn Yan

Origin of name: Joseph C. Yates, 7th governor of New York

Tourism site: fingerlakescountrysides.com

County fun fact

Grapes

Finger Lakes vineyard Seneca Lake — (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Outside of California, Yates is the largest wine grape-growing county in the U.S. and boasts the most wineries of any county in New York.

Dresden

Robert Green Ingersoll

Lawyer, writer, and orator Robert Green Ingersoll was born in Dresden in 1833. He was a prominent agnostic and close friend of poet Walt Whitman, whose eulogy he held. Whitman considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. A museum is dedicated to his life.

Penn Yan

Largest pancake griddle

The world’s largest pancake griddle (28′ 1″ diameter) hangs at Penn Yan’s Birkett Mills. It was used in 1987 to cook the world’s largest buckwheat pancake, which was mixed in a cement mixer and flipped with the aid of a crane. Topped with 15 gallons of syrup and 68 pounds of butter, it could feed 7,200 people.

John Imbrie

John hopkins glacier bay — (Photo: MusikAnimal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

A paleoceanographer known for his work the theory of ice ages, John Imbrie was born in Penn Yan in 1925. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, he taught at Brown University.

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