The Border Town Of Fort Covington, New York - Part 1

I'd heard about Fort Covington ever since I moved to the north country, but I hadn't yet been there. I checked Google Maps and found it, only about 25 miles from my house, on the Canadian border and inside an arc of the Little Salmon River. A historic town with a population of only 1600 people, it was originally called French Mills but the name was changed to Fort Covington after the War of 1812:

I turned onto Highway 37, an east-west route which parallels the Canadian border and found myself in a commercial zone with more businesses and more traffic than I would expect from a town of 1600 people. And there was an auto dealer/repair business called Northern New York Auto Sales:

Across the highway was Smith Lumber:

And Smith Auto Repair, probably owned by the same family as Smith Lumber and I wondered if it was related to Northern New York Auto Sales. I suspected it was:

A funeral home:

I began seeing a few houses, many of which were set behind giant, old trees:

Twin Leaf Express. I stopped here on my way out of town and bought gas at the full service station, then went into the deli/convenience store/diner for a cup of coffee where I learned that coffee was free when you bought gas. Business was booming, with so many cars coming and going that the gas station attendant told me to stay there while I went into the store:

Sweet Treats - closed for the season of course, but I'll bet it's a busy place in the summertime:

Adirondack Auto Parts:

St. Mary's Parish Cemetery (there were at least two of them in town):

By then I was in the residential area, about which I'll post more tomorrow:

The Massena, New York Museum - Part 2

I was touring the Massena Museum (see also yesterday's post) and came to this display, representing an old fashioned general store:

This cash register used to ring up sales in Massena's H.T. Clark Co:

And a poster from World War II, urging patriotic Americans to eat well and stay healthy:

There was entire room devoted to Massena's main export - aluminum. Massena is a company town and Alcoa has several plants in Massena and employs about 1100 people, about 1/12 of the town's population. By the way, did you notice that the war poster above was sponsored by Alcoa?:

And old fashioned washing machine with a Civil War soldier in the background:

And an early refrigerator:

I'm sure this Hotpoint kitchen stove was state of the art at one time:

Remember when people got new clothes every year for Easter?

A dining room:

I went downstairs to the Hearse room, where they had two enormous, horse drawn hearses. There were also displays of military costumes and fire equipment, - but the hearses and funeral home displays were my favorites:

This set-up used to be in a local funeral parlor:

I didn't photograph everything, but that'll give me new things to post when I make a future visit to the Massena Museum. My last picture was of this milk crate and bottles from Massena's Wilson's Dairy: