Van Etten grew from Hall's Corners into a bark-and-rail place

Van Etten presents itself with small-town values and a promise to preserve its historical, cultural, and natural heritage. The older story gives that promise some texture.

Before the town name settled in, the place had a crossroads identity. A log tavern was built in 1812, and a store opened in 1833 at the intersection of two main roads.

That crossroads became known as Hall’s Corners. The post office name Van Ettenville arrived in 1836, and the township was organized in 1854.

Then the industrial layer comes in. The old Chemung County history points to J. F. Hixson & Co.’s extract works, started in 1869, using hemlock bark for tanning extract. The same history ties the village to rail lines, including the Geneva, Ithaca and Sayre Railroad, the Elmira, Cortland and Northern, and a Lehigh Valley extension crossing near the village.

That makes Van Etten more than a quiet name between larger Southern Tier places. It was a road corner, a post-office name, a bark-and-tanning economy, and a rail point. You can still read the town as small, but it has a busier old machinery under the surface.