OSWEGO – In 1828 the City of Oswego was incorporated as a village, which eventually became a city two decades later. Since then and even prior, Oswego has seen loads of history from battles at Fort Ontario to becoming a major city during the Industrial Revolution. Colette Astoria combines the people and places of Oswego’s past with its modern food landscape with the Oswego Food Tour.
The tour itself lasts roughly three hours and sees guests walk just under two miles, according to Astoria. Along the way, the tour will stop at “at least five to six,” as its website reads, however Astoria typically shows off nine or 10 establishments. Food tours are unique in the sense that guests are offered a deconstructed multi-course meal at local restaurants or coffee shops that offer a taste of an item as its course.
Tours typically start at Bridie Manor for the opening course of a salad, while participants learn about the last remaining flour mill in Oswego. It survives as one of the oldest factory buildings in Oswego in part due to the material it is constructed from, stone. After the light bite, Astoria, the owner and operator of the tour, leads guests toward City Hall but not before another stop at Coffee Connections.
Prior to COVID-19, the tour was in full-swing, almost jam-packed during much of the summer months.
“It would pick up in June, July and August, and then I would hit a little dip in September,” Astoria said. “It would be real steady until the end of October. It was very popular then.”
COVID-19 put a slight damper on the tours with tourism on the decline and the need for social distancing. So far this year, Astoria has led just eight tours. When they reopened in May, she had to limit groups to six people, which provided a difficult challenge in its own right. Astoria prefers a larger crowd for her tours in order to be able to really work with the group at-large.
“Anything four over is good. I do like a group to be a little bigger, especially for the haunted tour, like six to eight would be my minimum,” Astoria said. “I have done it for two but it’s a lot of work, and it’s hard to treat you as an audience when we are walking on the sidewalks together.”
The tour itself is rather informative for tourists and Oswego residents alike. Astoria researched and worked alongside the Oswego Historical Society to create her note cards and to offer a unique perspective on both the buildings and people of Oswego’s past. Two of the bigger stopping points on the tour include information on both of these. Astoria places an emphasis on railroad infrastructure, something that boomed when Oswego was heavily industrialized, while she focused on the people that lived in the Franklin Square Historic District.
Oswego was home to three separate railroad lines with ones on the east and west side of the river, while another passenger one was stationed where today’s Paul’s Big M stands. According to Astoria, the large railroad presence helped propel Oswego to be the fourth largest city on the east coast during the Industrial Revolution, behind New York City, Boston and Philadelphia.
Astoria’s focus on a number of the elites of Oswego is intentional, as she enjoys the history of individual people as much as the city itself.
“One of the things that I notice when I go on other food tours is that they talk a lot about the architecture but not about the people that lived in the buildings,” Astoria said. “I want to know the stories about the ppl that lived there. What did they do? How did they make their money? And what was important to them? That kind of thing.”
Some of these people include the first resident of Oswego, Alvin Bronson, who was the first president of the Village of Oswego in 1828. Another included Lida Penfield, the first woman to go to Oswego Normal School, which became SUNY Oswego, and the first female chair of any department at the school. Astoria was fascinated by the slew of impactful women in Oswego’s history, something she shares on her tour.
“There are a lot of strong women figures in Oswego I didn’t know about before, like Lida Penfield,” Astoria said. “Everyone knows about Dr. Mary Walker, but I didn’t realize that it was kind of a trend locally.”
As the tour progresses along the west side of the city, Astoria leads the group down Bridge Street, W 1st Street and Water Street among other locations. Guests complete their multi-course meal from a myriad of places, like ice cream from Stone’s Candies and appetizers and sandwiches from La Parilla and Sherry’s. While many of these restaurants are Oswego staples, Astoria finds the tour to offer new experiences and establishments for many Oswego natives.
“It’s usually the local person that likes it the most,” Astoria said. “I think it’s never happened yet where I’ve taken somebody somewhere they haven’t been yet.”
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