19th century Ti — Building boom continues

The construction boom continued in Ticonderoga.

“L. C. Drake is getting out material for his new block. He has several valuable lots for sale in the heart of the village,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on March 4, 1882.

The huge forms for Gilligan & Stevens’ new block is looming up. We understand it is to be completed by the first of June next. It will be a fine acquisition to the business portion of the village.”

It was a good time to be an architect.

“John Jalet, architect, is full of business just now with the building of two immense blocks to superintend,” the Sentinel reported on March 31. “He certainly will little time to plan mischief.”

Excavation work was begun for the new L. C. Drake building, which, when completed, would hose the Drake & Bennett dry goods and grocery store.

“This will undoubtedly be one of the finest buildings in northern New York. … It will have a thirty-seven-feet front on Exchange Street (Montcalm Street) and Ninety-Six feet on Main Street (Champlain Avenue) , with an entrance on both streets, and three stories high,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on April 7. “The walls will be of solid brick and the inside is to be finished throughout with hard wood.”

There was a shortage of housing.

“Dwellings are so scarce here that some of our monied men are thinking seriously of building tenement houses. Fifty good houses are needed today and would be taken at once,” the Sentinel reported on Match 31.

“Wm. Duross purchased the building in which he is doing a marketing business and will move it onto other grounds as soon as he can purchase a suitable site. The owner of the grounds, Mrs. Hall, is about to erect a block of five tenement houses at once, and so the work of building goes on.”

In other 19th century Ticonderoga news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

1882

• “We are authorized to say that for the better convenience of the numerous friends and customers of the First National Bank of Orwell, Vt., that they will open a banking office in the village of Ticonderoga in a short time,” the Sentinel reported on March 24.
• “The Rogers Rock Hotel is being enlarged in order to accommodate the increased patronage which the popular summer resort is receiving from year to year,” the Sentinel reported on March 24.
• “The D. & H. C. Co. are building a new depot, 250 feet in length, at Baldwin and the steamboat company is also erecting a covered walk to the new dock, 100 feet long and 40 feet wide,” the Sentinel reported on Sept. 30.
• “A new awning adorns the front of Hooper & Co.’s mammoth store,” the Sentinel reported on April 7. “Their front windows present a fine appearance with a beautiful stove and other articles in the centre, fine samples of shoes to the right, and a fine array of crockery and other wares to the left.”

1880

• “Your correspondent with road commissioners Phelps, McIntyre, and Underhill laid out and surveyed a road from Ironville to Ti line, near Warner Hill recently,” the Elizabethtown Post & Gazette reported on Sept. 2. “There were 22 courses and the distance traversed is 470 rods. Ti will continue the road S. E. to Ti Street Road.”

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