The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking an operator of the historic Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Spa State Park in Saratoga Springs, NY. [Read more…] about Operator Sought for Saratoga’s Historic Gideon Putnam Hotel
Saratoga County
SPAC Amphitheater Improvements Underway
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has announced construction is beginning on a $2 million project to upgrade utility systems and make safety improvements at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) Amphitheater. [Read more…] about SPAC Amphitheater Improvements Underway
New York’s Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies
In 2021, while browsing the shelves at Berry Hill Bookstore, just outside of Deansboro, in Oneida County, NY, I noticed an old book entitled New York COMMISSIONERS for Detecting and Defeating CONSPIRACIES.
The book described this commission’s origins, powers, and jurisdictional controversies. Among the topics were stories of counterfeiters, deserters, murders, robbers, plunderers and more. [Read more…] about New York’s Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies
The CCC Helped Preserve Saratoga Battlefield Park
You might think that America’s battlegrounds were always seen as sacred, but that wasn’t always the case.
For more than a century after the 1777 Battles of Saratoga what is now the 2,500-acre Saratoga National Historical Park remained what it had been before the battles: private farmland. There were fields and pastures, with a few new buildings. [Read more…] about The CCC Helped Preserve Saratoga Battlefield Park
New Saratoga Mineral Springs Museum; Spa Park Lincoln Bath Upgrades
The NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has reopened the Lincoln Bathhouse at Saratoga Spa State Park after multimillion-dollar renovation projects inside and out. It now includes a new mineral springs museum focused on cultural history of Saratoga waters. [Read more…] about New Saratoga Mineral Springs Museum; Spa Park Lincoln Bath Upgrades
Two-Wheel Bureaucracy: How America Once Governed Bicycles
For those who choose two wheels, bicycles are celebrated as eco-friendly, low-barrier alternatives to the automobile. A bicycle license plate recently highlighted by the Vermont Historical Society however, reveals a time when they were subject to the same municipal oversight, state regulation, and licensing as motor vehicles.
In fact, municipal bicycle licensing and registration was widespread across Vermont, New York State, and indeed the United States, from the 1930s through the mid-1970s. [Read more…] about Two-Wheel Bureaucracy: How America Once Governed Bicycles
Rangers Respond to Wildfire, Gliders Crash, Injured Surveyor, Hikers
New York State Forest Rangers had a busy week responding to a variety of backcountry emergencies, including two gliders that crashed in Saratoga County, a wildfire at Henderson Lake in the Adirondacks, a surveyor with an injured leg in the Catskills, and more. [Read more…] about Rangers Respond to Wildfire, Gliders Crash, Injured Surveyor, Hikers
Saratoga’s Petrified Sea Gardens
Recently, while driving west on Route 29 just beyond the Saratoga Springs city limits, I passed Petrified Gardens Road. Instantly, childhood memories flooded back: unusual stone formations named the “Petrified Lion,” family picnics beneath the pines, and carefully choosing a souvenir from the rock shop. [Read more…] about Saratoga’s Petrified Sea Gardens
Candidates Largely Ignore Adirondack Issues Survey
Protect the Adirondacks sent out a non-partisan candidate questionnaire intended to inform voters about where candidates for U.S. Congress (House of Representatives) and the New York Legislature (Senate and Assembly) stand on issues impacting the Adirondack Park. [Read more…] about Candidates Largely Ignore Adirondack Issues Survey
New York’s Great Warpath & Historian Harrison Bird
Lake George, NY resident Harrison Bird (1910-2003) belonged to a rare class of historians, those whose situate the local within the continental and, indeed, the global.
In four books published by Oxford University Press – Navies in the Mountains (1962), March to Saratoga (1963), Battle for a Continent (1965) and Attack on Quebec (1968) – Bird wrote about Lake George, Lake Champlain, Fort Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Quebec and the northern waterways not as isolated historic sites, but as parts of one strategic corridor: the route by which empires, armies, navies and ambitions moved between Canada and the Hudson Valley. [Read more…] about New York’s Great Warpath & Historian Harrison Bird
Memories of 1940s Greenfield, Saratoga County, NY
In the 1940s, driving north from Saratoga Springs toward Middle Grove about a mile west of Route 9N in Saratoga County, NY, is Pages Corners where Sodaman and Sandhill Road intersects with Middle Grove Road. At the corner is the Callenius dark gray house, Mrs. Receal’s small white house whose son served in the Second World War, and larger white houses are on the other two corners. Taking a right turn onto Sandhill, you are climbing up the mountain toward Lake Desolation. [Read more…] about Memories of 1940s Greenfield, Saratoga County, NY
A New Paved Trail To A Historic Hudson Valley View
The Grant Cottage State Historic Site officially celebrated the completion of a new, fully ADA-accessible paved pathway to its historic Eastern Overlook on Mount McGregor in Wilton, NY. [Read more…] about A New Paved Trail To A Historic Hudson Valley View
New Deer Hunting Season at Saratoga Spa State Park
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) will open an undeveloped section of Saratoga Spa State Park to white tail deer hunting for the 2026-27 season as part of a deer management program. [Read more…] about New Deer Hunting Season at Saratoga Spa State Park
Saratoga Race Course’s Featured Jump Race: Some History
The Jonathan Sheppard Memorial Stakes race is scheduled to be run at Saratoga Race Course on September 2, this season. This Grade 1 steeplechase race, with a purse of $150,000 will kick off the final week of this year’s track season.
The featured jump race at Saratoga was renamed in 2021, and had formerly been the New York Turf Writers Cup, which had been run previously at other racetrack locations in the Empire State. [Read more…] about Saratoga Race Course’s Featured Jump Race: Some History
New York & The Struggle to Finance the Revolutionary War
One of the earliest acts of the New York Provincial Congress was the promise on May 24, 1775, to repay all monies advanced for the resistance to British domination. When the old colonial government was gradually superseded in 1774 and 1775 by an extra-legal government of committees and congresses chosen by the people, these bodies were met immediately by the problem of financing both the political activities and the military operations. The latter began with the plans to seize Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, shortly after the colonists had been electrified by the news of Lexington and Concord. [Read more…] about New York & The Struggle to Finance the Revolutionary War
Dr Helen Hosmer’s Rural Healthcare in the US & Canada
In 1934, Doctor Helen Hosmer opened a physician’s office on West Street in the Village of Galway, in Saratoga County, NY. Originally from Billerica, Massachusetts, when Hosmer arrived in Galway, she was 50 years old, and though an experienced chemist and scientist, she was just beginning her career as a physician. [Read more…] about Dr Helen Hosmer’s Rural Healthcare in the US & Canada
Equine Eyes: A New Way of Looking at Things
In late July the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs debuted a new one-of-a-kind exhibition, “Equine Eyes,” during an open house.
The exhibit is an interactive, research-driven presentation designed to simulate how horses perceive the world. [Read more…] about Equine Eyes: A New Way of Looking at Things
1925’s Lighter Side of Political History
This stunt, certainly, would have been harder to pull off in the era before Photoshop and artificial intelligence:
“Amherst College students perpetuated a practical joke this afternoon when they sent out news stories and photographs showing United States Senator Frederick H. Gillett (1851-1935) minus his celebrated beard,” The Glens Falls Times reported on June 17, 1925. “Senator Gillett, found by newspaper correspondents, was still wearing the beard.” [Read more…] about 1925’s Lighter Side of Political History
A Common Adirondack Public and Private Stewardship
Keith McKeever, retiring Public Information Director at the Adirondack Park Agency (APA), accepted much-deserved recognition at their recent meeting for his many years of admirable public service. In his short acceptance remarks, Keith implored all listening “to hold the line” for the Adirondack Park’s open space.
Keith’s message, as I recall it, was that the goal of protecting private open space is connected quite directly to the goal of more community development including necessary infrastructure directed to the Park’s settled areas in Hamlet and Moderate Intensity Use areas. [Read more…] about A Common Adirondack Public and Private Stewardship
East Line Hamlet: A Forgotten Crossroads
Before East Line Road marked the boundary between the town line between Ballston and Malta, it marked a community. Today, only a roadside sign hints at what once stood at the crossroads of Route 67 and East Line Road:
“East Line. An early community ca. 1780. ME Church built in 1809. Nearby was a hotel, a tavern, and by 1837 an RR stop.” [Read more…] about East Line Hamlet: A Forgotten Crossroads