Nichols, NY

Nichols is a village in the Town of Nichols, Tioga County, New York, on the south side of the Susquehanna River near the Pennsylvania border. The 2010 census counted 512 residents. New York 17 and Route 282 pass nearby, with Wapasening Creek joining the Susquehanna at the village. Tioga Central School District serves the community, and the river still sets the northern edge of its streets. The Southern Tier Expressway keeps Nichols tied to Binghamton, Waverly, and the wider river corridor.

The first permanent settlers arrived in the 1790s, and the village was briefly called the Corners and then Rushville before taking the Nichols name. Colonel Nichols, a local landowner, gave the place its lasting name. River traffic, ferries, bridges, and railroads once made the village a shipping point for farm goods and timber from New York and Pennsylvania. Flooding shaped later decisions too, leading to dikes around the village in 1971. Nichols still carries that river-town history, with Route 17, the Susquehanna, and the creek meeting at a small Southern Tier community.