Hammondsport, NY Shirts

Early aviation smelled like grape juice and engine oil, and much of it happened in Hammondsport. This small village at the tip of Keuka Lake was home to Glenn Curtiss, the motorcycle builder turned aviation pioneer who made the first pre-announced public airplane flight in America here on July 4, 1908, then taught airplanes to take off from water, testing his flying boats on the lake outside town. For a few improbable years, a Finger Lakes wine village was one of the places the airplane was being figured out. The vineyards were here first and never left: hillsides of vines climb from the shoreline, and tasting rooms ring both branches of Keuka's distinctive Y. The village square, the wooden storefronts, the lake glittering at the end of the street, all of it still feels built to a human scale. Our Hammondsport design floats a seaplane low over the water, vine rows curving up the hills behind it, the lake's Y tucked into the corner. Hammondsport businesses touch down on this page as they join ShirtMap.