Published March 30, 2008 11:16 pm - News stories from around the region from 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago this week.
Lookback: March 31, 2008
25 YEARS AGO -- 1983
The Northway's emergency telephone system becomes a thing of the past. State legislators chose not to include the system's $230,000 operating budget during fiscal 1983-84.
In order to avoid a state-ordered salary that it feels is too high, the Essex County Board of Supervisors passes a resolution making the office of district attorney part-time beginning Jan. 1, 1984.
District Attorney John McDonald's application to Essex County for $28,873 in back pay is withdrawn, at least for now. It is withdrawn pending conferences between attorneys.
A federal commission recommends the closing of 17 ports of entry along the U.S.-Canadian border -- three of them located in the Northeast. Local ports targeted are Cannon Corners, Churubusco and Jamieson's Line, near Malone.
50 YEARS AGO -- 1958
The Clinton County budget requires a larger tax levy that the budgets of 50 other counties in the state chosen at random in a Press-Republican county government survey. The other counties had populations roughly comparable to Clinton.
Taxpayers in Rouses Point vote nearly 7-1 to install a new $430,000 sewage disposal system. The final count revealed 290 voters in favor and only 45 against.
A curtailment of operations at the Sheridan Iron Works in Champlain is announced as a result of economic conditions. The curtailment will involve the laying off of some 30 workers. Hope is expressed that the layoffs will be temporary.
A threatened strike by the Builders and Common Laborers Union is averted as members accepted Champlain Valley Contractors Association offers. Members voted to accept a 35-cent-an-hour pay increase over a two-year period.
75 YEARS AGO -- 1933
Hope for the speedy construction of a Rouses Point-Alburg vehicular bridge by the states of New York and Vermont is dissipated when the Vermont Legislature adjourns without the introduction of a bill that had been prepared to enable the Lake Champlain Bridge Commission at act on the matter.
One road project on which there has been no delay even during winter weather is the Whiteface Mountain Memorial Highway. The road builders kept at work on the high side of the mountain despite cold, wind and snows.
Fire believed to have been caused by an accumulation of rubbish on the third floor of the Weed and Moore business block at 36-40 Clinton Street, Plattsburgh, causes damage and loss of stock estimated at $10,000.
The Montcalm Landing Station of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad is being changed to the Fort Ticonderoga Station.