Gloversville's Legacy
Gloversville was originally settled by Puritans in the 1790’s. As the population grew, leather tanning, and later glove production, became a prominent local industry due to the purity and abundance of water and the availability of hemlock bark as a source of tannin. After the Civil War, Gloversville enjoyed a sustained and stable golden age up until about 1950, during which most American leather and nearly all American gloves were manufactured here. Millions of pairs of gloves were regularly shipped by rail to all parts of the world.