25 YEARS AGO — 1984
  Mining consultants sent by LTV Steel, Republic Steel's successor, will be in Witherbee soon to study underground disturbances that are fraying the nerves of Silver Hill residents and have driven one family from their home.

  Because it might result in the contamination of well water in the vicinity of the consolidated landfill and because Essex County might be blamed, the Planning Office opposes a plan by New York State Electric & Gas to apply chemicals to telephone poles along wetland areas in Chestertown, Willsboro and Lewis.

  Pope John Paul II's visit to Montreal didn't draw nearly as many people from the United States as expected. The actual traffic flow was 8,000 people and 150 buses short of predictions.

  City of Plattsburgh residents will soon have access to regularly scheduled public transportation. Clinton County plans to expend its rural transportation system into the city.

50 YEARS AGO — 1959
  Residents of Shoreham, Vt., are preparing to go to court to stop what they call "poisonous" air pollution by the Ticonderoga plant of International Paper Co. The New York plant is situated about three miles across Lake Champlain from Shoreham.

  Polio may have invaded Plattsburgh with one death and two other cases, one positive and another under observation.

  An Irish Settlement Road general store and its contents are destroyed in a $35,000 blaze. Three fire departments were called to Buckley's Store.

  Two abandoned Plattsburgh schools are sold at public auction. Hubert Aiken bid $15,000 for the school on Elm Street, and Ralph McMonigal bought Wall Street for $4,100.

75 YEARS AGO — 1934
  The Town of Lewis experiences its most disastrous fire in years when flames destroy a dance hall and two houses with a loss estimated at $20,000. The fire started at Dave Silver's Ballroom on the Elizabethtown-Keeseville road.

  The Clinton County Board of Supervisors is expected to pass a resolution at its next meeting requesting all justices of the peace in the county committing prisoners to the county jail to sentence them to hard labor, so that it will be legal to work them in the county's newly opened stone plant.

  L.F. Hagglund, deep sea diver and manager of the Underwater Metal Co. of New York City, who is salvaging the Royal Savage, American war schooner, and Benedict Arnold's flag ship, sunk 158 years ago off Valcour Island in the first naval battle of the Revolution, is making rapid progress.

  Five barns on the farm of Louis Carter on the Middle Road a short distance from the village of Willsboro are destroyed in a spectacular blaze. The loss is estimated at $7,000.

100 YEARS AGO — 1909
  The Chateaugay Pulp and Paper Co. of Chateaugay is now turning out 30 tons of news and hanging paper per day. The plant is running night and day and gives employment to 60 men.

  It is reported the old blue stone quarries at Willsboro are to be reopened and are to furnish stone for a new bridge in New York City.

  The Chateaugay pulp mill that was destroyed by fire a few days ago is to be rebuilt. The plant was destroyed once before by fire Nov. 1, 1896.

  Report is that extensive renovation will be made to Morrison's Hotel on Upper Chateaugay Lake this winter to accommodate the increased patronage at this popular resort. Bookings for 300 guests have already been made for next season.

— Compiled by Contributing Writer Sue Botsford, who can be reached at 834-7201 or botsford@westelcom.com