Anthony F. Hall is the editor and publisher of the Lake George Mirror.
Anthony grew up in Warrensburg and after an education that included studying with beat poet Gregory Corso on an island in the Aegean, crewing a schooner in Hawaii, traveling through Greece and Turkey studying Byzantine art and archeology, and a stint at Lehman Brothers, he returned to the Adirondacks and took a job with legendary state senator Ron Stafford.
In 1998, Anthony and his wife Lisa acquired the Lake George Mirror, once part of a chain of weekly newspapers owned by his father Rob Hall.
Established in the 1880s, the Mirror is America’s oldest resort newspaper.
About fifteen years ago, a few lake-shore residents commemorated a 100th anniversary – that of the launching of the steamboat Sagamore.
The launching took place at Pine Point in Lake George Village, and according to contemporary accounts, it drew the largest crowds to the village since the introduction of the trolley in 1901. Local schools were closed for the day so that children and their teachers could attend the great event. » Continue Reading.
The Lake George Historical Museum is housed in the former Warren County courthouse, built in the decades between 1845 and 1878.
To the annoyance and frustration of the directors of the Lake George Historical Association, which operates the museum, and the Supervisor and Board of the Town of Lake George, which owns the building, the courthouse has not always been treated with the respect a museum of local history, let alone a historic building, deserves.
In recent years though, things have begun to change. » Continue Reading.
The construction of a new Bolton Landing Visitors Center and an addition to the town’s historical museum, both framed and unified by new landscaping in Rogers Park, will start this autumn.
The entire project is expected to cost approximately $2.2 million, said Bolton Supervisor Ron Conover. » Continue Reading.
The Pinnacle, the Bolton landmark visible from Lake George and the Cat and Thomas Mountains Preserve, will be safely protected from development in perpetuity. More than five years after Ernest Oberer first proposed building houses on the ridgeline, the Lake George Land Conservancy exercised its option to purchase the property in May, two days before the option was scheduled to expire.
By then, the Conservancy had raised the funds necessary to purchase the property, helped in part by a $10,000 donation from the Sagamore, contributions from local residents and a matching grant from Neil and Jane Golub and two anonymous donors, said Sarah Hoffman, the Lake George Land Conservancy’s director of communications. » Continue Reading.
In 1845, there were 221 distilleries in New York State, local historian and folklorist Marjorie Lansing Porter noted in an issue of North Country Life in 1953.
Moreover, she wrote, “great-grandma made dandelion wine, blackberry cordial, wild grape wine and used persimmons, elderberries, juniper berries, pumpkins, corn-stalks, hickory nuts, sassafras bark, birch bark and many other leaves, roots and barks to make ‘light’ drinks. » Continue Reading.
Customizing a dock on Lake George? There may be nothing in the Lake George Park Commission’s regulations explicitly allowing or prohibiting some modification or embellishment, but according Molly Gallagher, the Lake George Park Commission’s permit administrator, there are precedents.
“Some of these precedents for what is allowed or for what requires a permit were in my head, or in the head of the Commission’s first executive director, Mike White,” Gallagher told the Commissioners at a recent monthly meeting. “We also have Records of Decisions and individual resolutions. Now I’m putting some of these on paper in the form of a memorandum that will aid you in your deliberations and help guide administrators as well as dock builders and homeowners.” » Continue Reading.
In 2009, towns on Lake George were awarded a $69,000 grant from the state’s Adirondack Park Community Smart Growth Grant Program to create a “Trails Master Plan” for the west shore.
“Creating the plan was a great opportunity to pull together all the information we have about hiking and mountain biking trails as well as bicycle routes,” said Tracey Clothier of the LA Group, who crafted the plan. » Continue Reading.
Historians warn us against falling into a trap called the retrospective fallacy, that is, assuming that whatever happened – the Confederacy was defeated, we survived the Great Depression without a revolution – was bound to happen.
When we succumb to that kind of thinking, we overlook the achievements and sacrifices of those who brought us safely to harbor. Among those is Adirondack legend and women’s rights advocate Inez Milholland. » Continue Reading.
The salt in Lake George would decrease by 40% over a ten-year period if highway departments reduce its use now, by half, says Dr. Jeff Short, a science advisor to The Fund for Lake George.
“Any actions we take will be apparent almost immediately,” said Short. “If we cap loading now and then dial down, the results will be clear. So the incentive for taking action is huge.”
The Fund for Lake George is crafting a strategy to achieve that goal, said Eric Siy, The Fund’s executive director. » Continue Reading.
The property would become famous for the fields of sculptures installed by David Smith. It was called the Terminal Iron Works, in honor of the Brooklyn shop where Smith had made his first welded sculptures. But when it was purchased by Smith and his first wife, Dorothy Dehner, in 1929, “it was called the Old Fox Farm because a previous owner had raised foxes there for the fur trade,” Dehner recalled in 1973.
That previous owner was Abner Smith, one of the sons of Frederick Reynolds Smith, the boat builder who founded F.R. Smith and Sons. » Continue Reading.
A proposal by the owner of the Bolton Landing Marina to increase the quick launch facility’s height by twenty feet is drawing the scrutiny of Bolton’s Zoning and Planning Boards, both of which will have to approve the expansion before it can be sent to the Adirondack Park Agency for its review.
“No one, to my knowledge, has ever sought a variance to exceed Bolton’s 35-foot height limit,” said Henry Caldwell, a member of the Planning Board. » Continue Reading.
After former Governor Mario Cuomo’s death on January 1, a former colleague reminded us that when Cuomo signed the legislation authorizing the creation of an Environmental Protection Fund on Lake Champlain in 1993, much of the tension that had on occasion erupted into violence as a result of the restrictive recommendations of the 1990 Commission on the Adirondacks in the 21st Century, was defused.
A compromise had been reached. Funds were awarded for land acquisition, but there was also money for local governments in the form of grants for infrastructure and hamlet re-development. Of greater importance, the self-appointed leaders of the so-called Property Rights movement lost their constituencies and many of them left the area. Reasonable, responsible people on both sides of the issue reasserted control of the conversation. That’s how things have stood, more or less, until recently. » Continue Reading.
Not that long ago, or at least within living memory, Cleverdale on the east side of Lake George was home to fewer than five year-round families; the children attended a one-room school house on Ridge Road. A common footpath followed the shore, allowing residents to walk to church in summer.
Modern times, however, came quickly enough. Lakefront residents appropriated the sections of footpath that crossed their lawns. New York State acquired 28 acres on Sandy Bay and planned to build a public beach and picnic area there, a prospect so alarming to local residents, they sought to purchase the tract themselves. Eventually, the state reconsidered, perhaps as a result of pressure applied by some politically well-connected locals, and the land is still undeveloped. » Continue Reading.
For children traveling to the Adirondacks in the 19th century, it was not enough to have unregulated access to the woods and waters, much of which could be explored in their own, custom built boats.
They were built their own playhouses as well. According to Steven Engelhart, the executive director of Adirondack Architectural History, several great camps featured playhouses and childrens’ cabins, some in the rustic style, others suited to more eclectic tastes.
It’s not clear how many survive, but we know of at least two in the Lake George region. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Park may become the first region in New York State to have its own, integrated program to halt the spread of aquatic invasive species.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has asked the state legislature to appropriate $1 million to develop the Adirondack-wide strategy.
According to Morris Peters, a spokesman for the Division of the Budget, the money for the new initiative will come from an increase in appropriations to the Environmental Protection Fund. » Continue Reading.
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