28 YEARS AGO — 1996
• Students can study tracts of fossils throughout the area without doing more than pointing. The imprint of a snail shell embedded in gray rock in Chazy can be traced, spiraling outward for a few inches. Or glacial formations can be studied when the terrain is covered with snow. The topography and the long-dead mollusks now are preserved forever, safe from erosion, in a “virtual field trip” of New York’s northern Champlain Valley. Nineteen SUNY Plattsburgh students recently finished five weeks of teaching at area schools, where they showed teenagers how to use the Internet as a research and learning tool. Shawn Sexton, a senior secondary-education student, created the “field trip,” which can be accessed on the World Wide Web. Online browsers can visit countless sites throughout the world, “but you rarely hear about students using the Internet to find out something local to them,” Sexton said. The university student used a digital camera to take pictures from Plattsburgh to the border. He then downloaded them onto a computer and designed an interactive page around them.
• Visions of visitor-filled trains chugging up the Lake Placid-Remsen rail line are drawing the interest of prospective railroad operators. About 20 letters of interest have been received, according to state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Maureen McCarthy. Those who sent letters will receive complete information packages, including videos, specifications and sample contracts. The packages, which had been scheduled for mailing in November, are now expected to be sent by the end of the year. The reason for the delay, she said, was to make sure potential bidders receive the complete environmental picture and as many details as possible. A guided tour of the line was offered in October, but the department decided to delay it when only one potential bidder was interested.
50 YEARS AGO — 1974
• The Plattsburgh State University College enrollment, between 5,800 and 5,900 this year, is scheduled to drop to 5,000 by 1984, according to a new State University master plan. The new plan dramatically reverses a former goal drawn up in the 1960s, which it replaces. The old plan called for an enrollment of about 7,000 by 1980. The reversal in enrollment plans was revealed Tuesday by Dr. Joseph C. Burke, the college president, at a meeting of 168 professors and instructors in the Hartman Theater. Burke said he would fight for a higher enrollment limit. He also gave assurance that the faculty will remain at its present level of 305 next year. He contrasted the faculty situation at Plattsburgh with that at the University of Vermont, where 130 faculty members are being fired, and with nationwide campus retrenchments due to a declining birthrate that is reaching the college generations.
• It seems certain that the state will widen upper Cornelia Street to four lanes next year, but without sidewalks that were to be part of the project. Charles Lyman, director of Region 7 (headquartered in Watertown) of the state Department of Transportation, was in Plattsburgh Monday to explain the project to anyone interested in hearing about it. About 25 people attended the informational meeting, most of them landowners who will be affected by the widened thoroughfare. The project involves turning the 22-foot-wide Cornelia Street roadway into a 56-foot-wide four-lane street with a fifth lane in the center for traffic to turn.
75 YEARS AGO — 1949
• If you’re not a resident of Sailly Avenue, that part to the north of Delord Street, you probably won’t be interested in this. But if you are a resident of that portion of the city, you’re to be inconvenienced to a degree almost unbelievable. Water for your homes is to be turned off at eight o’clock this morning, and it won’t be turned on again until late afternoon. And there is not, at the moment, any definite guarantee of that if past performances are to be considered a criterion. It seems that there’s a bit of difficulty with the water line, and the better part of the week has gone by in what might be considered an attempt to remedy the situation.
• Radio station WIRY, to be operated in Plattsburgh by the Clinton County Broadcasting Corporation under the FCC permit granted on Dec. 14, will be in operation in the next few weeks, it was announced yesterday by Joel H. Scheier, president and general manager of the company. The new station will operate on 1340 kilocycles, 250 watts on a full-time basis. The corporation has purchased the property of Dr. Robert S. Brown, 311 Cornelia Street. Initial construction on this site already is well underway. The building will house the transmitter, offices, and studios. All operations will be under one roof. Also acquired was a 400-square-foot parcel of land adjoining the Cornelia Street site, part of the former Arthur Leonard farm. On this parcel, a 150-foot tower will be erected. The building will house three studios, a transmitter and control room, three offices, a staff lounge, bookkeeping and reception lounge and foyer, a heating and air-conditioning room, a news editing and copy room, a machine room, two restrooms, and will be identified to radio listeners as “Radio Park.”
100 YEARS AGO — 1924
• Federal agents, who have been busy trying to stem the flow of Christmas liquor to the southward by motor car, yesterday turned their attention to drying up Clinton County. Three establishments were raided, and the proprietors were hauled before Commissioner Pattisson. Leon Tromblee of Champlain, charged with possession of three quarts of alcohol, was held in $2,000 for Schenectady, Jan. 5. It was his second offense, as he was before Mr. Pattisson in October 1922, charged with possession and transportation. He furnished bail. Oliver E. Lavigne of Chazy, charged with possession of a pint of Dawson’s whiskey, 14 bottles of Frontenac, and 7 bottles of Dow’s, was held in $1,000, which he furnished. George Laventure of Champlain, charged with possession of 3 1/2 bags of ale, was held in $2,000, which he furnished. He was arraigned before the commissioner on Dec. 12 on the same charge.
• The old Clinton Theatre, which has for many years served as a gathering place for lovers of good, clean amusement for the people of Plattsburgh and Clinton County, will close a long and honorable career with tonight’s performance, after which its doors will be closed forever as a theatre in this city. The closing attraction will be Harry Carey, the celebrated Western star, in Bret Harte’s famous story, “Tennessee’s Partner,” dramatized for the screen under the title of “The Flaming Forties,” with an “Our Gang” comedy, “It’s a Bear.” The closing of the Clinton Theatre is almost like the passing of an old friend with whom we have passed many pleasant hours. But even old friends cannot stand out against the march of progress and modernity. The Clinton has served its purpose well and now makes room for Plattsburgh’s newest modern theatrical enterprise: the Strand Theatre, now rapidly nearing completion on the former Masonic lot on Brinkerhoff Street, where the old Peristroms Presbyterian Church once stood. The Clinton property has been purchased by Messrs. Benton & Leary of Saratoga, the owners of the new Strand.
— Compiled by Night Editor Ben Rowe