North Creek Maps, Old and New
North Creek's Opera House Curtain
If you've been to the Tannery Pond Center in North Creek, you've seen the remarkable O'Keeffe Opera House Curtain that hangs in its lobby. This 10-foot by 17-foot hand-painted marvel was commissioned by ten Main Street businesses as an early form of advertising. When the Tannery Pond Community Center opened in 2002 thanks to a gift from Elise and Woody Widlund, the Johnsburg Historical Society found the perfect place to hang the curtain as a reminder of the community’s history. Time had not been kind to this unique North Creek artifact, and so a painstaking restoration was required before it could be hung.
Click to enlarge.
So it has been for another distinctive North Creek gem which resurfaced a year ago at the North Creek Depot Museum. At a recent reception by the museum, Vice President Tony Cucchiara told the story of Dorothea Christine Loewel, who at the age of 32 came to North Creek in 1939, probably via a Snow Train from New York City. She stayed for three days at what was then called the American Hotel or American Tavern.
As a favor and thank you to the hotel's owner, George Gregory, she created this charming pen-and-ink pictorial map that captures the excitement of skiers arriving in town, the slopes at Gore, and shops on Main Street.
In 2000, the family gifted the map to the museum, but the vicissitudes of time, heat and moisture took its toll. "The piece was really in dire need of help."
That's where Carolyn Frisa came in. A conservator from Bellows Falls, Vermont, she specializes in the restoration of works on paper. At Sunday's reception, she described the many challenges the work presented, including lamination issues, the accumulation over time of surface direct, and insect-induced damage. She and Schaefer then unveiled the newly restored work, which for anyone with an interest in North Creek's history is a joy to study.
For one thing, we get a good sense of how things were laid out before the construction of the Route 28 bypass in the early 1960s. We see the layout of rope tows not only at the Ski Bowl but also at Barton Mine and near the Log House. We see the Rabbit Pond, Halfway Brook, and Pete Gay ski trails, the American Ski School, and even the photographer's platform from which we can assume some of the old photos of the Snow Train we find today were shot.
Main Street Detail
Having worked for the last six months with Warren County GIS Administrator Sara Frankenfeld on both an audio walking tour of North Creek and a printed map that spotlights historic points of interest, I found this detail of Main Street especially instructive.
Here we find the American Tavern before it was torn down to make way for the Phoenix Inn Resort, the Hewitt-Barbour Garage and Farrell's Hotel before they burned down, and the post office, movie theater and firehouse for the Barton Fire Department before they were torn down to make way for today's Tops shopping plaza.
Reproductions of Dorothy Loewel's 1939 map will be available at upcoming events marking the 90th anniversary of the first Snow Train.
Sunday, March 3, Tannery Pond Center, 3 P.M.
Join us for our launch of A Walking Tour of North Creek as both an audio tour you can play on your smartphone and as a foldable map to follow along the way.
Brought to you through a collaboration between the Warren County Department of Planning and Community Development and Cliff & Redfield Interactive.
Download our Explore Warren County app now to hear the tour in beta. Your input is welcome!
Walking Tour of North Creek
