[citation needed] In the 19th century Trumansburg was dominated by Col. Hermon Camp, an officer in the War of 1812 who settled in what was to become the village.

[3] Between 1961 and 1970, Robert Moog built electronic music equipment including Theremins and his famous synthesizers in a downtown storefront.

Since the late 1940s it has become a combination of a bedroom suburb for Ithaca and a modest tourist destination, with restaurants and antique stores.

Since 1991, the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance has taken place each July at the village fairgrounds and is hosted by nationally popular Trumansburg-based band Donna the Buffalo.

Other cultural resources include the Ulysses Philomathic Library, a member of the Finger Lakes Library System, the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts, which offers concerts and music lessons,[8] and the Ulysses Historical Society Museum, with collections of local historical material.

[9] The Trumansburg Central School District Foundation provides financial support for local educational programs.

The scenic Taughannock Falls State Park, featuring one of the highest waterfalls east of the Rocky Mountains, is located just southeast of the village at the edge of Cayuga Lake.

Trumansburg is bisected by NY Route 96, a state highway, enlarged and re-routed in 1961, that runs north to Waterloo and south to Ithaca.

Only scattered pilings remain, and the site is now a camp owned by the local Boy Scout council.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad ran through Trumansburg between September 13, 1873, and October 1962, when the portion south to Ithaca was abandoned and most of the easements sold to the New York Gas & Electric Company (NYSEG).

In the last 15 years the state park system has bought back much of the right-of-way and is in the process of constructing a biking and hiking trail along the portion south to Ithaca.

It is called the Black Diamond Trail, after the Lehigh Valley's premier passenger train that ran between New York City and Buffalo along the line (although not stopping in Trumansburg).