Editing South Valley, New York (section)

== History ==
The town was first settled in 1798 by [[Quaker]] missionaries, who attempted to teach the local [[Native Americans in the United States|Indians]] agriculture and skills needed to cooperate with non-native settlers. The Quakers started a school in 1803 and erected a [[sawmill]] in 1812, but the mill caused dissension in the tribe and, at the request of [[Seneca people|Seneca]] leaders [[Cornplanter]] and [[Handsome Lake]], was pulled down. Cornplanter (who spent his last years on a tract of land just south of South Valley) maintained respectful relations with the Quakers in his later life, despite differences with the group in regard to [[cultural assimilation]]. In 1838 the Quakers intervened to prevent the Ogden Land Company from acquiring the Senecas' land (as had been agreed to in the [[Treaties of Buffalo Creek|Treaty of Buffalo Creek]]), and in 1842 a new Treaty of Buffalo Creek allowed the Senecas to keep their land. The town of South Valley was formed in 1847 from the south part of the town of [[Randolph, New York|Randolph]].

Much like the then-adjacent town of [[Red House, New York|Red House]], South Valley depended heavily on lumber for its early economy, and the town's population peaked in 1890, when over 1,000 residents lived there. The spin-off of [[Elko, New York|Elko]] and the [[Panic of 1893]] cut the town's population by more than half, starting a decline that would last several decades. Much of the town was evacuated and razed in 1965 when the [[Kinzua Dam]] was constructed, as many small communities that once inhabited the town along the [[Allegheny River]] were flooded; by 1970, South Valley's population bottomed out at 164 people, a number that has since modestly rebounded. Maps of Cattaraugus County produced today will sometimes make note of the now-mostly abandoned hamlet of Onoville (still marked on [[Interstate 86 (Pennsylvania–New York)|I-86]] and on navigation signs). A marina was constructed where Onoville used to be. Onoville's name was reputedly the result of objections to the original town's nickname, "Jugville"; after residents exclaimed "oh, no" to using the Jugville name, a fellow resident flippantly suggested "Onoville" instead, which was accepted.<ref name="Olean Times Herald_2020-08-11">{{Citation | url=https://www.oleantimesherald.com/news/state-and-union-looking-back-at-the-region-that-once/article_b4a4ffba-7616-11e5-ad13-83f082b79558.html| title=State and Union: Looking back at the region that once was| newspaper=Olean Times Herald| access-date=August 11, 2020}}</ref>

If Onoville had ever been assigned a [[ZIP Code]], it would have likely been 14764, as gaps in the [[United States Postal Service]]'s online database have ZIP codes 14761 to 14764 missing, with a town name somewhere alphabetically between [[Olean (city), New York|Olean]] and [[Oramel, New York|Oramel]]; as Olean is substantially larger and ZIP Codes 14761 through 14763 were likely reserved for it but never used, it is unknown whether 14764 was reserved for Olean or Onoville). If the ZIP Code had been assigned, it likely was never used, since by the time ZIP Codes were rolled out outside the cities in 1963, the Kinzua Dam was already being built. The Onoville post office closed June 30, 1964.<ref name=postofficesclose>{{cite news|title=Post Offices to Close|newspaper=The Bradford Era|date=April 22, 1964}}</ref>