In tracing the history of the Municipal Park, we learned in an earlier column that the initial proposition to acquire the tract of land for the park’s development failed by 20 votes to gain voters’ approval. Village officials remained undaunted by this failure and believed that a general misconception figured heavily in the defeat of the project in the balloting, which took place in the spring election of 1932. As a result of this optimism, the village secured a new option on the land that bordered Racquette Pond between Cliff Ave. and the O.W.D. property line. The new option would withdraw the seller’s reservations that were objected to in the former option (certain water rights and the exception from purchase of a 140-ft. strip). The new proposition would also more clearly define the boundaries of that portion of the tract that was to be developed (below Lake St. and extending from Cliff Ave. approximately to the W.D. Wilson Co., now Major Day car wash and NAPA Auto Parts). With “all their ducks in a row,” village officials offered a second opportunity for voters to decide for or against the land purchase through a special election scheduled for that fall. Why were the village officials so concerned that the voters approve this purchase?
The Santa Clara tract was hardly a real estate prize. Racquette Pond was littered with hundreds of half-sunken logs (40 years later, Frank Morrison and his Rod and Gun Club crew were still diligently working to make the pond navigable by removing those hazardous “deadheads”).
Also, due to the fluctuating, uncontrolled levels of the Setting Pole
Dam, the shoreline was a mess of drowned trees, and the tract was often
flooded. Travel to the Junction during these times required going down
McLaughlin St., also known as the “back road.” In addition, to reach
hardpan for construction purposes such as piers, it would be necessary
to go down 12-14 feet – about five feet below the level of the Racquette
Pond. Five feet of spongy layers of bark and decayed wood laid down years
ago when Hurd’s historic “Big Mill” operated on the site would have to
be removed, etc.
Note: The term “deadhead” comes from the fact that as one end of the
floating log becomes “dead” (waterlogged), it would sink. This left the
“live” end floating at an angle poised like Prince Valliant’s lance to
spear an unsuspecting boater.
Yes, it would take an immense amount of WORK to create the proposed park. But let’s give those village officials and the community voters high marks for vision. We certainly have a beautiful park today, partly as a result of their having acquired the land.
Would you agree, however, that there may have been a second more compelling reason in the minds or our village officials? A simple equation might explain: Project plus government money equals JOBS!
Remember, this was a time of great despair in this community as elsewhere in the country. Unemployment had reached new highs, as much as 80 percent in some localities. It is hard to imagine in today’s economy the sense of ruin that existed. Contemplate long soup lines, respectable men knocking on doors asking if they could do odd jobs in return for a piece of bread, over 400 families in this community on the welfare rolls, seeking fuel, food, clothing and other relief items. Enter at this time, a new president – a 50-year-old aristocrat and former N.Y. state governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who would become the most important president of the 19th Century. Over the course of his legendary “first hundred days,” the government established 15 new legislative initiatives, one of which was to provide work and relief for the jobless under a program known as the Work Progress Administration (WPA).
The necessary first step for work relief was to have a project – ergo – acquire, the Santa Clara tract and provide a project that would meet government guidelines for WPA approval.
The voters got the message and this paper, in its Oct. 27, 1932, edition,
would report: “Tupper Lake took another long stride as a modern mountain
resort when voters carried the municipal park proposition, which will
give to the village a public recreation center on the shore of Racquette
Pond by the overwhelming majority of 173. Out of a total of 492 votes
cast, 315 were recorded in favor of the project, 153 against, and the
remaining 15 ballots ere spoiled.
“Mayor Paul E. Martin has announced that a large force of men will
be employed at once in clearing and preparing the large area of the
park site, a task which will provide employment for many of the village’s
jobless.”
Note: The WPA would later that year approve a $77,000 grant for filling
and grading the park site. The village had won its gamble for federal
dollars.
Three years later, October 1937, with the swampy lakeshore still not filled, the funds for truck hire ran out and the project stalled to a standstill. Frank McCarthy was then the village mayor and together with the village clerk, Ned Sparks, they conferred with WPA officials in Albany, who granted a supplementary grant of $59,000. This made a total of $136,000, a huge amount of money in those years! The village had been drawing sand from a pit at Little Wolf, purchased from Eugene Briere. With the new grant, they immediately put 28 men back to work at 40 cents an hour for a 40-hour week. John Hayes, project foreman, marshaled eight trucks and a power shovel (it had been hand-loaded previously) and began drawing 450 to 500 yards of fill daily. Once the fill was completed, work would begin on the new grandstand under the supervision of James King, foreman of that WPA project.
Next: Jim King and crew run into problems erecting the grandstand.