The legacy of Gunlocke’s furniture spans generations, and should be preserved in Wayland NY
A COLUMN by Steve Sprague,
It’s a chair. I’ve never fallen asleep in It like I do in the recliner. It’s always been associated with work of some kind. And in recent years, it’s even begun shedding what looks like graphite dust that makes the floor (and me) very unhappy.
So how can I now treasure a simple, useful but older chair?
The recent headlines here in The Sun and other places explain why. The chair is a Gunlocke swivel office chair made 80 years ago just 24 miles away in Wayland. The news that Gunlocke’s corporate owners will soon close the facility, founded in 1902, feels like a personal loss.
The closing will badly hurt our neighboring community. Reports say as many as 135 jobs will be lost and the town, village and county will lose a significant tax contributor. I have an idea that might keep a few of those at work but that’s for a later note.
My chair has its own story. My dad started work at Corning Glass in 1946. We lived here in Bath and that 22-mile commute on old Route 15 was rain, snow or sun for almost 30 years.
Things changed drastically in 1972. Tropical Storm Agnes flood waters literally changed the face of many communities in the Southern Tier but none more than Corning and Elmira. Corning lost 21 souls in the flood. The Glass Works – essentially a hometown business that had grown into an international superstar – was devastated.
Most of the facilities of CGW had matured in the downtown; their sparkling Museum of Glass was ruined. Despite it’s size and cosmopolitan stature, the company’s founding family, the Houghtons, made it a point to treat its thousands of employees as family.
My dad often mentioned how then-CEO Amory Houghton would walk through company shops and talk with each employee on a very personal level, asking about family and hobbies.
So, I guess it was no surprise that when the flood happened, employees were offered the chance to take home whatever water-damaged items they found useful. Dad’s Gunlocke chair soon after found its way to my home, at the time in Elmira Heights.
As a news guy with WENY and later, the Star-Gazette, I had my own stories about the flood. But I was also a relatively new father and simultaneously working part-time toward a degree at Elmira College using the GI Bill benefits.
That chair and a cast-off Underwood typewriter were my constant companions through college papers and long nights. Though the typewriter was slowly replaced when I was drafted for work in Washington in 1976, the chair came along. I proudly boasted of its origin from “back home” to anyone who asked.
The chair still represents an icon of design and quality. I see them offered online now for as much a $1,000. Mine isn’t for sale. It was just a few years ago, though, that the swivel mechanism began leaking what looks like graphite dust. Black and very fine.
Which brings me to the last thought. I’d dearly love to see Wayland create a Gunlocke chair restoration and repair facility carrying the Gunlocke name and quality. Hundreds of banks, offices and historical sites still use the Gunlocke products once prominent in the JFK Oval Office. I suspect hundreds of jury boxes, as well.
Who better to care for them than the men and women who built them in the first place. Maybe even in a corner of the factory where they were made. Let’s suggest that modest investment to the HNI Corporation as a respectful nod to the history and world-recognized product they inherited.
Steve Sprague is a Steuben County native, former Congressional aide to Rep. Stan Lundine, former TSA supervisor, and a combat veteran. You can reach him anytime, sgsprague@gmail.com
