They fished, planted, prepared for warmer temperatures, and shopped in northern Otsego and a bit north of the county line in April 1926.
The calendar turned to April, and like clockwork, out came the fisherman, with a minor obstacle.
As we learned from last weekend in 2026, it can be sunny and 70 one day, the next with snow flurries and 30s. Such was the case in early April 1926, as the Otsego Farmer reported around the opening of trout season, “Some find a note of humor in the opening…that the fish we caught by trolling from a slowly moving motor boat on a large spoon on a very long and heavy weighted line. Just now it inconveniently happens that the Lake is covered with a foot or more of solid ice, which seriously impedes the operation of motor boats.
“We have it on authority of President L.M. Raynor of the Cooperstown Fish & Game club that the trout can be caught through the ice, and while the law seems to imply that the author did not take that consideration into account we can see nothing in the statute to prevent one from trying it, in which case all would depend on the inclination of the fish.”
While some sought fish in frozen waters, others in nearby Sharon Springs were getting ready for the summer, also related to water. As the Farmer of April 7 reported, “Following the arrival of Manager Louis Gordon of the White Sulphur Springs company from New York City, where he and Mrs. Gordon have been spending the winter, announcement is made that the celebrated bathing establishment will open at Sharon Springs on May 12th. At present a force of thirty men are at work getting the property in shape for the season which is expected to be larger than ever.
“The American hotel will open May 15th and the Pavilion hotel on June 10th. A new bath house has been constructed to meet the increased demands of the summer season. One of the interesting installations in the way of new equipment are a lot of aluminum bath tubs, which have been purchased with the idea of improving the type of service rendered by the White Sulphur company.”
There was a glimmer of hope that hops, once the mainstay crop that grew all over the region, was on a comeback.
As the Farmer of April 7 reported, “Medicinal beer, comparable to alcoholic content to the pre-prohibition beverage, will be acceptable to the public for the next six months at least, according to dispatches from Washington published Tuesday of last week.
“The announcement is read with interest by hop growers and former hop growers as perhaps the first sign of a returning demand for hops. The new medicinal beer is expected to create a demand for hops that may result in the resumption of hop growing on a larger scale.
“The new ‘health booster,’ which Anheuser Busch, Inc. of St. Louis, and the Pabst Brewing company of Milwaukee have been given permission to manufacture, is expected to be accessible to the public at drug stores.” It never amounted to much for hops, locally.
While there wasn’t much hop planting going on, the Farmer of April 21 told readers, “Saturday, May 1st, will be tree planting day at Westford. The event will be under the auspices of the Forestry committee of the Otsego County Board of Supervisors and the Farm Bureau, and 72,000 Norway spruce transplants coming from the state nursery at Saratoga will be set out on state lands recently acquired by the county.
“The tree experts estimate that if all the transplants which are set out May 1st live, they will return to the taxpayers in fifty years the sum of $56,000, which is a pretty fair return for one day’s work.” Using an inflation calculator, this sum would be worth over $180,000 if harvested in 1976.
On April 30 and May 1, it was “Dollar Days” in Cooperstown. A total of 66 merchants and others cooperated in the event. Of those 66, four remain in 2026, including the Freeman’s Journal, Ellsworth & Sill, Church & Scott and Schneider’s Bakery.
On Tuesday, the education beat around Oneonta in 1976.