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Saturday August 9th: Wooden Sailboat Lecture

Re-making History: The Sound Inter Club Restorations and Reintroduction to Lake George. – August 9, Saturday, 7:30 pm, MGM Church

The fast and powerful 1926 Sound Inter Club sailboats were raced and sailed first on Long Island Sound, but as many as 10 of them were brought to Lake George in the late 1930s and 40s, where they were enjoyed for decades by the rich and glamorous on Lake George. Of the 28 ever built, only five remain today. Wooden boat builder Reuben Smith tells the story of the painstaking, careful restoration of two of these boats, as well as the historic reintroduction of the class to Lake George.

Sponsored by the Friends of Historic Huletts Landing

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Now For Some History: Early 1980’s


Damage sustained by the Post Office when a car ran into it in the early 1980’s.

I can’t remember the exact date, but I came across this picture recently from when a car ran into the Post Office in the early 1980’s. That’s the old bakeshop in the background.

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Timber……

The Huletts Landing Property Owners Civic Association did some tree removal and pruning last week on their private property.

As I was taking this picture, Francis Borden told me that his father had planted the tree pictured above in 1900 for Henry Buckell, the owner of the first Hulett hotel at that time.

So not only would the tree have been over 100 years old, but it also would have been in place when the first hotel burned in 1915.

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Exhibit at the Lake George Historical Museum Focuses on Lake George Mirror Newspaper

Among the new exhibits at the Lake George Historical Museum this summer is “The Lake George Mirror: The History of a Newspaper, the Story of a Community.”

Established in 1880 , the Lake George Mirror became a medium to promote Lake George as a summer resort in the 1890s. Published to this day, the Mirror is America’s oldest resort newspaper.

The exhibit includes reproductions of covers from 1880 to the present, artifacts such as the burgee from the small steamboat in which the editor gathered news in the 1890s, books and brochures promoting Lake George and its businesses which were printed by the publishers in the 1940s and 50s and the stories of those who have owned and edited the newspaper.

An interpretive commentary accompanying the images and artifacts allows the visitor to place the displays within the context of the newspaper’s history and the evolving character of Lake George as a resort community.

“Through the history of the Lake George Mirror, we can trace the history of a resort of rural villages with a few great hotels to the mansions of Millionaire’s Row, to America’s first motels,” said Lisa Adamson, the Lake George Historical Museum’s executive director.

“The exhibit should appeal not only to those interested in the history of Lake George, but to everyone fascinated by graphic design. The Lake George Mirror has always been visually unique. People who visited Lake George in the 1950s, or who grew up here in those years, will especially love the covers from that era and the brochures of resorts and motels that no longer exist,” said Adamson.

The Lake George Historical Museum is located in the old Warren County Courthouse at the intersection of Canada and Lower Amherst Street. During May and June, it is open Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm. Call 518-668-5044.

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Happy Easter

Easter Morning
circa 1818
Johann Friedrich Overbeck
Museum Kunstpalast
Düsseldorf

I wish everyone peace and joy this Easter and throughout the year!

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Huletts Post Office on POSTPlan: Your Vote Counts

So you’ve heard that the Huletts Landing Post Office is officially on the POSTPlan. This is the plan that cuts hours at rural post offices. It has been proposed that the Huletts Post Office have it’s hours cut from 8 hrs per day to 4 hrs per day. You think that’s the end of the matter. WRONG. The US Postal Service has been eliminating small rural Post Offices on the POSTPlan. This is how. Cutting the hours is but one option, all other options will lead to the closing of the Post Office. Over the next 24 months, the Postal Service will mail a letter, customer survey and the date of a community meeting to customers of post offices on the POSTPlan. USPS will provide four options for POSTPlan post offices. Choose the option for “realigned hours” in the USPS customer survey. Return it immediately to USPS. Any of the other three options will mean closure of the post office. That’s right! If any of the other three options are chosen, USPS will close the Post Office and announce that that was the preferred choice of the community.

Examples of this letter and survey can be found here.

USPS will tally the survey results and tell the fate of the post office at the community meeting.

The new realigned hours will go into effect 30 days after the community is notified of the fate of the post office, ONLY if that is the preferred option by those voting.

The Postal Service will be notifying postal customers over then next 24 months; however it is important to be ready. ONLY the Option for Realigned Hours will keep the post office open!

Realigned hours means postal service hours will be reduced to two, four, or six hours.

This message will repeat over the next two years until this letter and survey is mailed.

Please look at the draft letter and survey so you are prepared to help.

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Saturday Quote

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

The Confession of St. Patrick (c. 452?)

Taken from the translation by John Skinner and John O’Donohue in The Confession of St. Patrick and Letter to Coroticus (1998) ISBN 0-385-49163-8

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Now For Some History: 1950’s


Tony’s newsroom in Whitehall circa the 1950’s. (Click to see full-scale.)

I have my brother, Al, to thank for the picture above.

I have many fond memories as a child sitting at the counter on a hot summer afternoon, sipping an ice-cream float and reading comic books. Where have the days gone?