Fairfax
Sidney J. Cullingham, a real estate developer from Omaha, Nebraska, created the Fairfax Addition in 1929. The subdivision was located in the Town of Southport, on the southwest border of Elmira.
It was comprised of 215 lots on Holdridge, Princeton, Leroy, Medina, Batavia, and Spruce Streets.
Cullingham’s use of “Fairfax” is reminiscent of the business practices of fellow Omahan and national real estate developer, N.P. Dodge, who routinely named many of his additions “Fairfax." The June 28, 1929, advertisement below, that appeared in the Elmira Star-Gazette, also bears a striking resemblance to Dodge’s standard newspaper advertisements – employing a similar layout, similar copy, and also offering lots for “One Dollar Down and One Dollar a Week….”:
Like those of N.P. Dodge, Cullingham’s advertisement also informed readers that lots were “restricted to white people and neat attractive homes.” This was made legally enforceable by racial covenants Cullingham included in deeds for Fairfax lots such as that below from the 1929 deed for lots 11, 12, and 13:
Newspaper evidence shows that Cullingham was, in fact, an employee of N.P. Dodge and Company in 1925, having been in charge of selling lots in the Fairfax Addition of Rome, NY ①. A 1928 article appearing in The Omaha Evening Bee-News also lists N.P. Dodge as director and Cullingham as vice director of the Nebraska division of the Hoover Helpers, a political fundraising organization and division of the national Republican committee supporting Herbert Hoover's Presidential campaign ②.
Cullingham was the step-son of U.S. Senator Robert B. Howell, Republican from Nebraska ③, and would later himself serve two terms in the Nebraska Legislature from 1943-1947. He withdrew from the race for a third term in order to "devote more time to a real estate business ④."
Belmont
S.J. Cullingham acquired the former Augustus MacConnell farm in March 1930 from the Steele Memorial Library Association for $22,000 ⑤. The 60-acre tract was located in Horseheads, NY, bordering the City of Elmira to the north. Cullingham subdivided the property into 292 lots on Grand Central, Arnold, Butler, Camden, McConnell, and Lenox Avenues, and Cornell and Steele Streets, and named the Belmont Addition – another name widely associated with the business practice of N.P. Dodge.
The cost of individual lots varied $99 to $369, payable in twenty-five cents, fifty cents, or one dollar weekly installments ⑥.
As in his earlier Fairfax Addition, Cullingham included racial covenants in deeds for lots in Belmont, like that for lot #218:
Universal Village
The 80-acre Universal Village subdivision was built in 1943 by B & E Homes, Inc., on the former Caton Avenue airport plot in the Town of Southport ⑦. 316 lots were subdivided on Allen, Robert, Marion, and Curtis Streets, Universal, Sherman, and Plymouth Avenues, Strouse Road, and Circuit Drive. At the time, Elmira was experiencing a critical housing shortage as the Remington Rand plant transitioned from manufacturing typewriters and adding machines to wartime production. In 1942 the factory's already sizable workforce doubled to 10,000, and Elmira's population rose by 9,000 in just two years between 1940 and 1942 ⑧.
The original 160 homes in the development were initially advertised as "sold at $4300 each, with a $3850 F.H.A. insured mortgage.... ⑨" raising the possibility that racial covenants were inserted into deeds. In fact, Abraham Hider, the President of B&E Homes, Inc., submitted a Declaration of Restrictions for the entire subdivision when it opened in 1942 that is marked as "Approved by Federal Housing Administration" and includes the following racial covenant:
The record of real estate transfers published in the local Star-Gazette newspaper indicate that S.J. Cullingham later sold lots in the Universal Village subdivision in 1952 ⑩.
As late as 1958, Cullingham transferred a deed for lot #252 in Universal Village excerpted below that reinforced the original Declaration of Restrictive Covenants (note: despite erroneously dating the declaration as having been filed on May 6,1943, the book and page numbers clearly references Hilder's 1942 declaration):
① "134 Fairfax Lots Sold in Two Days," Daily Sentinel (Rome, NY), Jul 11, 1925, p. 7. Accessed via newspapers.com
② " 'Help Hoover' Fund Now $507," The Omaha Evening Bee-News, September 24, 1928, Page 21. Accessed via newspapers.com
③ "Heart Attack Causes Death in Washington," Buffalo Courier Express, March 12, 1933, p. 1. Accessed via newspapers.com
④ "S.J. Cullingham Dies; Had Role in Public Power," Omaha World-Herald, July 31, 1983, p. 72. Accessed via newspapers.com
⑤ “Library Nets $22,000 From Sale of Farm,” Elmira Star-Gazette, March 15, 1930, p. 15. Accessed via newspapers.com
⑥ Elmira Star-Gazette, July 1, 1932, p. 20. Accessed via newspapers.com
⑦ Elmira Star-Gazette, May 19, 1943, p. 7. Accessible via newspapers.com
⑧ "Elmira History: A 'boom town' in the 1940s," Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), October 14, 2016. Accessed via www.stargazette.com/story/news/local/twin-tiers-roots/2016/10/14/elmira-history-boom-town-1940s/91732650/
⑨ Elmira Star-Gazette, May 19, 1943, p. 7. Accessible via newspapers.com
⑩ Star-Gazette, June 29, 1952, p. 6. Accessed via newspapers.com
© AUGUST 2026
Elmira Star-Gazette, Fri, June 28,1929, p. 22. Accessed via fultonhistory.com
EXCERPT: Deed, 25 October 1929 (Deed Book 248, page 155, Office of the Chemung County Clerk, Chemung County, NY).
EXCERPT: Deed, 19 July 1934 (Deed Book 306, page 370, Office of the Chemung County Clerk, Chemung County, NY).
EXCERPT: Declaration of Restrictive Covenants, 30 December 1942 (Deed Book 327, pages 594-5, Office of the Chemung County Clerk, Chemung County, NY).
EXCERPT: Deed (Book 511, pages 328-9-, Office of the Chemung County Clerk, Chemung County, NY).
