[1][4] Growing out of a large tract of farmland, Endicott was known as a boomtown, and as a result acquired the nickname The Magic City.

With In 1890, Lester Brothers along with Lucas Kacynski Co moved their business west to a nearby rural area, which in 1892, was incorporated as the village of Lestershire and in 1916, became Johnson City.

His early adoption of a new machine that could stitch "uppers" to "lowers" was the key to his success, meaning that for the first time in history unskilled labor could manufacture shoes.

People who couldn't afford this bought used shoes, and had cobblers regularly replace the soles and heels as they wore out, until the uppers disintegrated.)

The next parcel of inexpensive, level land along the railroad and safely above the flood plain was a forested area around what is now the intersection of North Street and Washington Avenue in what is now Endicott.

What was by then the Endicott-Johnson Corporation purchased this land and several large tracts around it and built a number of state-of-the-art factories along the railroad line.

Endicott grew and flourished due to massive numbers of immigrants who came to the area to work for "EJ", predominantly from southern and eastern Europe.

was said to be what they asked immigration officials at Ellis Island in New York City, but it is far more likely that they had already memorized the addresses of relatives or friends living in Endicott.

Along with extensive company-provided recreational facilities and medical clinics (unheard of at the time and decades before government took over these responsibilities), this "Square Deal" of the early 20th century is commemorated by stone arches erected by the workers in 1920 across Route 17C (Main Street) at the entrances to Endicott and Johnson City.

Unfortunately, the management of Endicott-Johnson after the death of George F. Johnson in 1948, couldn't cope with a more affluent era in the 1950s and 1960s when footwear became mainly a fashion business in the United States.

More importantly, little if any money was invested in improving the original 1900 manufacturing technology, which meant that foreign countries could make the same shoes at a lower price.

The formation of what soon became IBM consolidated some of the major companies in the industrial time-keeping business, but its new chief executive Thomas J. Watson realized that data processing had far greater potential than just workers punching a time clock.

A great motivator of salesmen, Watson sent them to a new territory of banks, corporations, and government agencies, where they explained how a database of IBM punched cards and data processing with IBM sorting machines would enable them to answer questions in a day or two that they were never even able to ask because of the months of clerk time that would have been required.

The outbreak of World War II and the subsequent mobilization of the economy and the induction of 12 million young men into the military resulted in a demand for more data processing work from IBM.

IBM's engineers and workers in Endicott provided reliable and cost-effective computers to government agencies, banks, and large corporations in the 1950s.

IBM's own expansion in this period was the construction of large research and development centers in the Glendale section of the town of Union (3 miles (5 km) to the west, now occupied by State of New York offices) and in Owego (9 miles (14 km) to the west, now owned by Lockheed Martin).

After the Second World War, IBM corporate headquarters moved to Armonk, New York, and new research and manufacturing sites were established throughout the United States and overseas.

Much of the IBM factories in Endicott are abandoned and in ruins and have severely diminished the quality of life in recent years in the area.

The Triple Cities College, a branch of Syracuse University, was started in Endicott in 1946, using buildings donated by IBM and Endicott-Johnson.

Originally held annually in September, the tournament attracted golf's biggest names, from Arnold Palmer to Tiger Woods.

In the early 20th century, Italians flocked to Endicott due to the opportunity for jobs in the Endicott-Johnson shoe factories.

Trace elements of volatile organic compounds have been identified in Endicott's drinking water, but the levels are within regulatory limits.

Also, from 1980, IBM has pumped out 78,000 gallons of chemicals, including trichloroethane, freon, benzene and perchloroethene to the air and allegedly caused several cancer cases among the townspeople.

In 2002, scientists discovered a large underground chemical plume, which was releasing toxic gases into homes and offices in a 350-acre (1.4 km2) swath south of the plant.