Aurora Inn

Colonel E.B. Morgan — a native of Aurora and co-founder of the New York Times — built the inn in 1833, when travelers arrived by coach, canal boat, and rail. It sat on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake, in a village that had already outlasted an Indigenous settlement, a Revolutionary War expedition, and the slow decline of canal-era commerce. In 2001, Wells College alumna Pleasant Rowland partnered with the college to renovate it. The courts fought over whether that renovation should happen. It did.