Dr. Jones’ Beaver Oil: No Beaver, No Dr. Jones
In talking about Lebbeus Burton of Troy, the druggist whose fortune founded an orphans’ home that is still in use today, we touched on the seemingly unlikely cure of Dr. […]
Beaver Oil, Root Beer, and Orphans
Looking up these old local stories is nearly always a venture down a rabbit hole, and it’s usually a question of where to stop. One little detail catches the eye, […]
The Albany Police Bill
There was a time when the organization of the Albany police department was a very hot political issue. That time was 1896. Back in the days when there were two […]
The Moses Fountain
This was originally published on AllOverAlbany several years ago. Anyone in Albany knows the Moses fountain in Washington Park. But few know how this biblical tableau came to be one […]
A.L. Stevens, Schenectady’s Rooming House Keeper and Armless Driver
Paging through an old Schenectady Directory, an oddly worded series of advertisements led us to an interesting story – the story of the armless man who owned a group of […]
Man, Beast or Devil?
Okay, this one isn’t really history, and it’s barely Schenectady-related . . . but it’s fun. Readers who opened their copy of the Schenectady Gazette on January 31, 1921, were […]
Van Curler Opera House
Last time, we wrote about The Miles Theatre, a flash in the burlesque/vaudeville pan that existed pretty much within the confines of 1920 in Schenectady. Before that, it was a […]
The Miles Theatre Apologizes
It’s not often that a theater takes out an ad apologizing for a show it has booked. But apparently Arthur Ungar, manager of The Miles Theater in Schenectady, felt the […]
The Fire Record, 1887
Fire was recently in the news for taking a terrible toll on a city with the unthinkable destruction of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. But it was a loss […]
The Lorraine Block and a little more Stanford history
Once upon a time, the construction of a new office building really meant something – it was a point of pride for a community to know that a modern structure […]