Culled by Judy Garrison With commentary by Jim Andrews
From September 1922 issues of The Andes Recorder
100 Years Ago
WEEK IN AND ABOUT ANDES
Events of a week as chronicled by the Man on the Street
Merritt Stuart is erecting a new $18,000 bungalow at Corbett. Mrs. Stuart was Miss May Bruce of Andes. [Jim Andrews: This, of course, is Buffy Calvert’s father and mother’s house in Corbett.]
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Mrs. William I. Gill is in New York City this week purchasing millinery goods and procuring the fall and winter styles of women’s head gear. [JA: Mrs. Gill had a millinery shop in the corner building where the post office used to be.]
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Andes is certainly experiencing a building boom this fall, and numerous projects are under way. Work has been commenced on the building of a creamery on the site of Andes Creamery company plant destroyed by fire over a year ago. It will be of concrete. The Andes Co-Operative Dairy company will erect a Bi-Products plant just at the rear of their creamery. [JA: This creamery operated on that site until it also burned in 1946. It was rebuilt and operated until the 1970s, when the decline in dairying here forced its closure. It is now the home of ROMO Machine.]
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John. C. Fowler has broken ground for a new residence on lower Main on part of the “Cottage Row” property. [JA: This and the Stott house mentioned below are the two Craftsman houses below the old Corner Store building. They were actually built by John Fowler who was a farmer and had formerly worked on the D & N Railroad, and was also a skilled carpenter. John Fowler was the father of Marguerite Fowler who lived in that house until her death in 1994.]
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David L Bruce is having extensive improvements made on his residence on Main street. [JA: This Victorian house was dramatically altered into the fashionable Craftsman style with the addition of the large L-shaped porch with cedar shakes added in the roof peak and was painted in traditional Craftsman brown and gold.]
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J. Alex Stott will erect a house on the “Cottage Row” property. [JA: Rima Walker’s home –see above.]
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The State Automobile bureau has begun to send out license plates for 1923 to the county clerks of the various counties of the state. The plates which are made at the state prison in Auburn are purple in color, with white letters, and are said to be very easily recognizable as to number from a considerable distance.
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A big crowd attended a clam bake at Shavertown Wednesday night. State Troopers were present and captured some booze brought in by bootleggers.
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It is a little-known fact that in 1887 the first pasteurizing machine ever used in the United States was imported from Germany and set up at Bloomville, Delaware county by Luis B. Halsey. This plant initiated the plan of pasteurization which at that time was opposed by New York City as a subterfuge to conceal unclean milk; a position on which the same board reversed themselves 12 years later and now they will not allow a drop of milk to be sold in New York that has not been pasteurized. [JA: This creamery is still standing at the North end of Bloomville and there is a NYS historic marker in front denoting its historical significance.]
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David Ballantine passed away after brief illness…. By his death Andes loses one of its most prominent citizens. For more than half a century he was in business here, first as a merchant and later as a banker. He was for many years vice president of the First National Bank and upon the death of his father he became its president. After the bank voluntarily liquated [sic] in 1895, he conducted a private bank until 1918, when he sold his banking business to Charles E. Hulbert, who then organized the National Bank of Andes. He then retired and thereafter spent the winters at S. Petersburg, Florida and summers in Andes…..He was a man of sterling, resolute character, firm purposes, uncompromising honesty, indomitable energy, genial disposition and whole-hearted friendship….[JA: Somewhere I had heard that David Ballantine’s banking business was having management issues and that’s why he sold it. His retiring seems like a better reason!!!]~
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