Drive the Original Circuit

Racers rounded this corner, just after passing the main entrance to Watkins Glen State Park and the bridge over Glen Creek.   William Milliken, an aeronautical and automotive engineer as well as a racer, wrote about the first turn: “From a driver’s viewpoint, nothing can be compared to having been in the midst of that snarling pack as it slid through the ‘S’ turn off Franklin Street, and accelerated up the long hill.”

This steep road starts the 670-foot climb in elevation from Franklin Street to the high point of the course at 1140 feet above sea level.

Like Old Corning Road which connected Watkins Glen to the city of Corning to the south, the local roads often derive their names from their end points. The south part of the circuit follows a portion of Townsend Road (Rt. 329) which leads to Townsend, a small community in the Town of Dix, located to the west.

A family-operated restaurant, inn and motorcourt, Seneca Lodge has served as a social center for the racing community since the first road race in 1948. The Lodge’s tradition of hosting race teams and fans visiting for events at the track continues today. Its close ties to local racing are reflected in a display of artifacts and memorabilia in the Lodge’s tavern room.

This point marks a series of uphill curves near where a white farm house stood in 1948. The original house is no longer there. The name takes poetic license from White House Corner at the Le Mans circuit in France. Henry Valent, circuit historian, describes this section: “Down the long stretch from White House corner the driver has his hands full as the car takes punishment from the surface roughness and he wrestles with the dips and camber changes of the road.”

A steel beam and girder bridge carried the New York Central Railroad’s trains over the roadway and became a highly sought-after viewing spot for spectators. With the trains temporarily halted during the races, fans crowded the bridge and concrete abutments.

A native granite boulder with a bronze plaque memorializes the victory and tragedy of the Collier brothers, who both raced on the original course. Miles Collier drove a spectacular race in the 1949 Grand Prix, coming from behind to steal the win from the race leader Briggs Cunningham in the final lap. His younger brother Sam, while leading the Grand Prix in 1950 at over 120 m.p.h., skidded and lost control of his Ferrari, crashing in the adjoining field. He later died of his injuries. Miles honored his brother by organizing the first endurance race at Sebring in 1950. Extended to 12 hours in length, the race has become a premier sports car endurance event.

This junction marks the start of the dramatic, abrupt descent into White’s Hollow. In the 1948-1952 period, the structure on the knoll on the southwest corner served as the Glen Creek School, a rural one-room schoolhouse. Remodeled, it is now a private residence.

The single-arched fieldstone bridge over Glen Creek in White’s Hollow became known as Cornett’s Stone Bridge after a racing mishap. In the 1948 qualifying race, Denver Cornett flipped his MG into the dry creek bed 20 feet below the bridge. Horrified spectators feared the worst when they heard a voice from under the car say, “I’m all right, but somebody needs to get this car off of me.” After he was extracted and the car righted, Cornett borrowed parts from his fellow competitors and was ready to race in the Grand Prix that afternoon. He finished seventh.

The extant stucco house at the intersection on the left belonged to a dairy farmer named Archy Smith. Smith, like other enterprising property owners on the route, turned their yards into paid parking lots and viewing spots for the growing number of spectators. A temporary grandstand was constructed in the field across Station Road. Attendance for the races swelled annually and was estimated at 10,000 in 1948 to 150,000 on race day in 1952.

The surface of this section of the road was dirt. Beyond the trees lining the south side of the road, a sheer cliff drops to the bottom of the Glen’s steep gorge. A fleet of Piper Cub airplanes bringing fans to races by air landed and parked in the open field to the north. Cars went at maximum speed on this stretch, braking for the bump at the railroad tracks that often sent a vehicle airborne.

In 1948, Frank Chase, the Train Master of the New York Central Railroad, secured approval to “stop the trains” for the duration of the sports car races, providing safe crossings over the active freight line.

The descent into the village begins here. The curve received its romantic name from the bordering tract of land, an extensive property occupied by St. Anthony of Padua Minor Seminary & Prep School, a Catholic high school operated by the Order of Friar’s Minor from 1949 to 1970. The property contained renowned mineral springs and from 1890 to 1942, before becoming a school, served as a popular spa known as Glen Springs Resort and Sanitarium.

This section of the course presented an inspiring view of Seneca Lake harbor. It offered a breathtaking experience for the driver, with maximum speeds on the downhill descent.

Named for William Milliken, who flipped his Bugatti in the last lap of the 1948 Junior Prix, the qualifying race for the first Watkins Glen Grand Prix, while vying for 3^rd place in the last minutes of the race. Milliken landed in the haybales lining the street and crawled out unharmed, to the applause of spectators across the street. “Thrill corner,” the tricky turn into the village still marked by the triangular-shaped Flatiron Building, was renamed “Milliken’s Corner.”

Frank Griswold, driving his 1938 Alfa-Romeo 2900B, took the first checkered flags in Watkins Glen on October 2, 1948. Griswold won both the qualifying race or Junior Prix and the inaugural Watkins Glen Grand Prix held later the same day. Twenty-three sports cars gridded for the qualifying race including 9 MG TC midgets, many pre-war European factory-produced cars, and a couple homemade specials. Ten cars finished the arduous course.