Little Falls Historical Society Museum Events
This day in history: December 16
1886
About one thousand people were present at the public meeting under the auspices of the Knights of Labor, at the Skinner Opera House. The assemblage was addressed by Mr. T. B. Barry who talked about the local labor situation, and his unsuccessful attempts to meet and negotiate with head of the Little Falls Manufacturers Association.
This day in history: December 17
1845
The first electric communication through Little Falls was the telegraph line of the Utica and Schenectady railroad. A contract was made on this date and the telegraph line was installed in 1846.
1917
A good number of recently built US submarine chasers, moving down the canal, stopped in Little Falls on their way to New York City. They will bolster our shore defenses.
This day in history: December 18
1830
Disgusted with alien ownership, Little Falls citizens met to petition the New York State legislature to enforce the Alien Land Law of 1817.
1896
James Riley has secured, for the sum of $25, the privilege from the State, of using the part of the canal known as Leigh’s Level for an ice skating rink. Little Falls school children are allowed free at specific times. The general public is to pay an admission charge of five cents for using the rink.
This day in history: December 19
1898
The old Girvan House suffered severely from fire forcing forty-five guests and other inmates out into the cold. The fire was believed to have started in the rear of Joe Wright’s fruit store.
1933
It’s full speed ahead to get the Melrose Slipper company of New York City into operation in Little Falls. All doubts about the ability of the company to secure a sufficiency of help would seem to be removed by the number of applications made to the company’s New York office. 125 to 150 jobs are projected.
1941
WW II Era – A record 181 trains on the New York Central line passed through Little Falls in a single day.
Bygone Little Falls winters of skiing and sledding by Jeffrey Gressler
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumDecades before there was a Pine Ridge ski center in Salisbury or a Shu-maker Mountain ski area outside Little Falls, generations of Little Falls winter sports enthusiasts skied and sledded down the vertical drops that typify our steep, narrow Mohawk Valley topography.
Help keep community history alive this Christmas
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumAs the holidays are upon us, the Little Falls Historical Society would like you to consider giving loved ones and friends copies of the great book BEYOND OUR BICENTENNIAL as Christmas gifts.
The Little Falls Historical Society Honors our Nation’s Veterans
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumThe Little Falls Historical Museum would like to honor all US Military Veterans for Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2022.
1882: The Year of Pestilence, Death and Solutions in Little Falls by David Krutz
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumThe summer of 1882 was a bad time to be an inhabitant of Little Falls as sickness and death raged throughout the village. In those few months, an estimated sixty people died, with hundreds more sickened – over half of the deaths were of infants and adolescents. Cholera, typhoid fever and “brain congestion”, at the time often lumped together as “malarial disease”, were the culprits. Victims of cholera suffered severe cases of diarrhea and subsequent dehydration, with death sometimes occurring within hours or a few days from the onset of symptoms.
Those Were The Days by John Frazier
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumSt. Mary’s Parish (now Holy Family Parish) had a new priest, and this was his first assignment out of the seminary. He was young, he was friendly, he had an easy smile, most of the girls liked him because he was good looking, and the boys liked him because if there was a basketball game going on, he liked to take off his collar and join the game.
Broomsticks and Ballots by Ray Lenarcic
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumI love Halloween. Always have. My earliest remembrance is dressing up in a cowboy outfit complete with flannel shirt, neckerchief, vest, chaps and the piece de resistance, a pearl-handled, silver Lone Ranger cap pistol.
Morgan’s Dairy by Bart Carrig
/by Little Falls Historical Society Museum“Around the back and up the stairs…” That’s how our mornings began.
The first time I heard that instruction, from my Uncle Morgan Carrig, it was about 5:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, circa mid-June 1964. My older brother Kevin, who had previously enjoyed all the benefits and privileges of employment as a milk delivery boy for Morgan’s Dairy, was “unavailable” – no doubt due to a Friday night dance at Filipski’s bowling alley on the South Side.