Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Government, People

Location

641 Lake Street, Wilson, NY 14172, USA

Lat/Long

43.298101, -78.828459

Grant Recipient

Town of Wilson

Rexford Tugwell, a Wilson, NY resident from 1900 to 1933. He studied Economics and earned degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia. Tugwell went on to become Assistant Secretary of Agriculture under the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Considered a member of FDR’s “brain trust” (close advisors), he was later appointed Governor of Puerto Rico in 1941. In 1946 he resigned the Governorship and went on to accept a teaching position at the University of Chicago.

Tugwell’s writing retreat was moved here from its original location on Tugwell Island in Wilson’s harbor. The cabin was donated to the local historical society in the 1980s.