The Historian

Contact the Historian: historian@townofaurora.com.

Robert Lowell Goller was appointed the eighth Aurora Town Historian on January 8, 2007.

A former editor of the East Aurora Advertiser, he launched his journalism career in the fifth grade when he began publishing Goller’s Gazette, a small newspaper that served the Hamlin Park neighborhood in East Aurora for seven years. He graduated in 1998 from Geneseo College, where he studied communication, American history and religion, and was awarded the college’s 1998 President’s Cup for academic and extracurricular achievement. 

After college, he was a reporter at The Daily Messenger in Canandaigua, N.Y. Interviews during his journalism career have included the Brown sisters of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education and prominent American rabbi and author Harold Kushner. He was the member of press pools covering First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1998 and former President George H.W. Bush in 1999.

In 2008, Robert was awarded the Mary and Gill Stott Award at Roycroft for achievement in writing, music and history, and in 2011 he was among Business First’s “40 Under 40” rising community and business leaders in Western New York. The County Legislature named him Erie County Citizen of the Month for November 2019.

His volunteer activities include serving as the master of ceremonies of East Aurora’s annual Christmas Carolcade since 2005; portraying President Millard Fillmore and the “special singing guest” at the Aurora Historical Society’s annual fundraiser; and volunteering weekly as the musical accompanist at his church. He and his husband live in the Village of East Aurora.

Robert presents a variety of history programs and historical exhibits, including annual displays in the Historical Building at the Erie County Fair. He writes a monthly newspaper column on the history of East Aurora; hosts a weekly livestream on Facebook; has written two local history books, Aurora Revisited (2011) and Legendary Locals of East Aurora (2014); and is currently conducting research for additional publications.