Odessa, NY

Odessa is a village in Schuyler County, New York, set along the western border of the Town of Catharine and the eastern border of the Town of Montour. It sits south of the southern end of Seneca Lake, with State Routes 224 and 228 and county roads carrying traffic through the surrounding hills and farmland. The village's position gives it a useful role on the county map, connecting the communities around Watkins Glen and Montour Falls with the roads leading toward Hector and the lake country.

The village was surveyed in 1827 by Phineas Catlin and John Foster. Foster opened a tavern and general store by 1836, giving Odessa an early commercial center, and the school moved to College Avenue in 1875. That sequence gives the place a straightforward local time line: land was laid out, a store and tavern followed, and the village developed the institutions that held the center together. Odessa remains small, but its border location, school history, road junctions, and relationship with Seneca Lake make it an easy village to place within Schuyler County.