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Grab your two-wheeler
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From Weise’s “The City of Troy and its Vicinity”: “Troy Bicycle Club, organized November 4, 1881, purchased the spacious Coliseum Building, on the south side of Federal Street, between Sixth and Eighth streets, in the early part of 1886, and fitted it for the purposes of the association. The clubhouse, built of brick, has…
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When a house burned down
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From Beck’s Pocket Guide to Troy, 1935, Andrew J. Smith wants to make sure you’ve got enough insurance to keep the neighborhood from talking behind your back. Note that in 1935, people wouldn’t think of going to a fire without a proper hat, and that for a summer fire, a straw boater was considered…
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John English and Son, Coal Merchants
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Were John English & Son, Coal Merchants, the original tenants of this magnificent edifice? This ad is from 1895.
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Troy Observer and Sunday Budget
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The Troy Observer and Sunday Budget, the only Sunday paper printed in Troy (and thus the only paper in Troy with color comics) ran at least until 1953.
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Sewing Machines, Clocks, Spectacles
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Andrew Aird dealt in sewing machines, clocks, spectacles, eye glasses, needles, oil, silk twist, thread and who knows what else from his store in the Mansion House Block in Troy. That great building, of course, still stands.
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E.S. Randall, Fashionable Goods
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1870. Being a gentleman of taste and judgment, I want to go to there.
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Rural Routes
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Are there still rural routes? In the old days, if I wanted to send a letter to my aunt in West Glenville, I’d address it to her name, R.D. (rural delivery) #3, Amsterdam. The mailman who had that route was just expected to know who lived where – no road name was required. Imagine.…
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Cash Buys Paste.
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What did Troy’s garage bands do in the days before staple guns and telephone poles? They called on Mrs. Dundon, City Bill Poster, who pasted billsheets to the bricks of the Collar City. When this ad was published in 1895, the brush had been a power in the land for 26 years. Cash buys…
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Stove Capital of the Country
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Before collars, Troy’s fortune was made in iron works. The old forests of the Adirondacks fueled iron forges up and down the Champlain valley and beyond, but Troy emerged as the major iron manufacturing center in the state in the mid-1800s. And for a time Troy and nearby foundries were putting out huge proportion…
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Mourning goods
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I don’t know where I’d go for mourning goods today, but in 1870, I’d have gone to Betts & Medbury, in the Mansion House Block in Troy. Dry goods of every description, but mourning goods were their specialty. Mourning was big business in those days.