History, Natural History & the Arts
With a length of 803.8 feet, it was a massive airship, only 80 feet shorter than the 1912-sunk, ocean-liner Titanic.
Along with its sister craft, the LZ-130, the LZ-129 Hindenburg was the largest-man-made object to ever fly. [Read more…] about 1936: The Airship Hindenburg Over Lake George
In 1868 a Lake George island reportedly sank following an earthquake and “tremendous upheaval of waters.” It was early January and newspapers around the state and elsewhere published a story similar to this quote from the Buffalo Daily Courier about “the sudden sinking of Recluse Island near Bolton, Lake George.” [Read more…] about 1868 Hoax: The Day a Lake George Island “Sank”
When one thinks of Lake George, NY, one might conjure up visions of beautiful blue water, sandy beaches, and bountiful history. Here is a story from six-decades ago that generates all three of those mental images. The decade of the 1960s in America was a rebellious era and Lake George was certainly not an exception.
At the start of that decade in 1960, a song, “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” sung by Brian Hyland, became a huge hit. The bubblegum-pop tune was about a shy-young woman embarrassed to appear on the beach because of her “itsy bitsy” bikini, that two-piece bathing suit that soon became the norm for female beach attire. [Read more…] about 1964 Fashion History: The Monokini & Lake George
Three towns in Warren County – Lake George, Bolton and Horicon – are among those with hamlets where median home sale prices range from $600,000 to $900,000 – among the highest in Upstate New York.
But drive a few miles inland and the picture is a very different one. The safety net is fraying. [Read more…] about Fighting Food Insecurity in the Lake George Region
What follows is The Northway and the Adirondack Forest: A Highway Location Study, published August 31, 1957 by the New York State Department of Public Works. The 333.49-mile-long Adirondack Northway, Interstate-87, has origins in the construction of the Major Deegan Expressway in the 1930s and was completed to the Canadian border in 1967.
The Northway (Interstate Route 502 [now designated I-87]) gets its name by traversing the area once known as the “Great Northern Wilderness.” Vital to the national defense network, it is being designed and constructed in accordance with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 as a joint Federal-State venture. [Read more…] about 1957: The I-87 Northway and the Adirondack Forest
With another strategic land acquisition, Bolton Landing on Lake George is one step closer to realizing its ambitious plan to become a recreation hub of the southeastern Adirondacks.
The Lake George Land Conservancy (LGLC) has purchased a 30-acre corridor between the Bolton Community Center (a.k.a. the Conservation Club) on Edgecomb Pond Road and the 213-acre Twin Pines parcel on Trout Lake, which the LGLC purchased in 2019. [Read more…] about Lake George’s Bolton Landing Trail Network Expanding
New York State Forest Rangers recovered the body of one swimmer, and carried out more than a dozen rescue missions between July 3rd and July 8th around Upstate New York, including one climber, a swimmer and a paddler. What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of those recent missions. [Read more…] about Forest Rangers Recover Body, Make 13 Rescues of Hikers, Climber, Swimmer, Paddler
The New Deal was the largest expansion of federal power since the Civil War and many of its programs had their origins in Albany, in the policies of Governors Franklin D. Roosevelt and Al Smith and their influential aide, Frances Perkins. [Read more…] about FDR, Boy Scouts, Civilian Conservation Corps and the Adirondacks
More than any other single individual, a summer resident of Bolton Landing on Lake George was responsible for opening Asia to international air traffic. That man – Harold McMillan Bixby — was among the first Americans to imagine that routine, transpolar air travel from New York to Asia was possible. [Read more…] about Lake George Aviation Pioneer Harold Bixby
Will McKay was a very lucky young man. Over the course of two years starting in 1885, he had married his sweetheart Anne, been blessed with a healthy newborn son, and with them at his side was about to embark on a trip to Korea paid for by Thomas Edison.
In 1863, 12-year-old Gojong was crowned Monarch of the Korean Empire. As Korea was forced out of isolationism in the 1870s the country began to move towards Western innovation and technology. One of these was the development of electricity, which had been introduced into Korea through Japan and China. [Read more…] about Until His Luck Ran Out: The Story of William McKay
Dome Island is that rarest of things, an undisturbed piece of wilderness in the middle of Lake George, protected for the past seventy years by the Nature Conservancy and a committee of local volunteers and, in recent decades, by the Lake George Land Conservancy.
More than 60% of its forest canopy is composed of hemlocks, and every year since 2020, when hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) was first discovered among the evergreens’ needles and branches, the Nature Conservancy has treated the invasive pest with insecticides. [Read more…] about Saving Lake George’s Dome Island Hemlocks
Louis W. Emerson made a victory lap the day after he was elected to the New York state Senate.
“Senator-elect Emerson of Warrensburg was in town yesterday and smiled on his friends and ‘friends,’” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on November 7, 1889. [Read more…] about Louis W. Emerson: Warren County Industrialist & Political Leader
Through September, the Lake George Park Commission’s boat inspectors have surveyed more than 35,000 boaters and vessels, placing 2023 on track to become the inspection program’s busiest year since New York State established it nearly ten years ago.
According to Justin Luyk, who supervises the program, trailered motorboats are the primary vectors for the spread of aquatic invasive species and nearly 500,000 of them are registered in New York State alone. [Read more…] about Lake George Boat Inspection Program Having Busiest Year Yet
The Dalton-Loines Family Papers reflect a family’s commitment to preserving nature through generations and exemplifies the role women took in grassroots environmentalism during the 20th century.
The papers consist mainly of materials that focus on the family’s lake houses in the Northwest Bay of Lake George. [Read more…] about Dalton-Loines Family Papers Recall Lake George Preservation
A harmful algal bloom (HAB) was found on Northern Lake George in September, the Lake George Association (LGA) has announced. It is the first time that a HAB has been documented on the less-developed end of the lake, said Lake George Waterkeeper Chris Navitsky. [Read more…] about Harmful Algae Blooms Spread To Northern Lake George
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents throughout New York State. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations and volunteer search and rescue groups, Forest Rangers locate and extract lost, injured or distressed people.
What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers. [Read more…] about Rangers Rescue 15 Rafters; Recover Body; Make Rescues at Fish Creek, OK Slip Falls, Whiteface, Colden, Phelps, N-P Trail
Beech Leaf Disease, detected at the western edge of the Adirondack Park in 2022, has spread to the Lake George watershed. Forest Health technicians from the Department of Environmental Conservation discovered a Beech Leaf Disease infestation along a trail on Bolton’s Edgecomb Pond property in late July, Bolton Supervisor Ron Conover said. The technicians were surveying the Cat and Thomas Mountains section of the Adirondack Forest Preserve, a DEC official told Conover. [Read more…] about Invasive Beech Tree Killer Found Near Lake George
In 2020, Black Bass Antiques owner Henry Caldwell acquired an old scrapbook, one page of which was titled “Jalopy Races in Bolton in 1947.” It included a blurry photograph of Sam Hoopes racing a 1924 Model T jalopy. [Read more…] about The 1940s Jalopy Races at Bolton Landing on Lake George
It was late on Wednesday, January 19th, 1910, and Police Chief W. R. Bronner was making his evening rounds through the quiet village of Mohawk, in the town of German Flatts, Herkimer County, NY, making sure all was safe for both business and residents.
Somewhere near the intersection of Main and Washington streets, he encountered four men who engaged him in conversation as they all walked along. Before he could resist, he was relieved of his pistol, gagged, and brought into the Masonic Hall billiard room that the Yeggs had broken into earlier in the evening. Once inside, Bronner was bound with wire taken from pictures on the wall. [Read more…] about When The Yeggs Hit Upstate New York
Species start to vanish from streams during the first stages of suburban development, according to the United States Geological Service. By the time impervious surfaces had absorbed 20 percent of the terrain of some New England watersheds, for example, those streams’ aquatic invertebrate communities had shrunk by roughly 25 percent. [Read more…] about How Does A Land Trust Protect A Watershed? One Parcel At A Time
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