The Peru Gazette

May 11 – 10 am to 3 pm, Clinton County Historical Association Museum. Celebrating National Train Day. CCHA will be celebrating National Train Day at the Museum with a one-day-only exhibit of trains of all sizes – N scale, G Scale, O scale, and HO scale.  Plus a special showing of Gary Brandstetter’s HO scale train dioramas. Also available will be a selection of books on the Rutland and D&H Railroads donated by Lawrence Duffina’s estate and a map of the United States showing all the railroads that existed in 1861.

May 14 – 2:30 pm, Meadowbrook Healthcare, 154 Prospect Avenue, Plattsburgh. Early Tourists Visiting the North Country in style. Photos of the grand hotels, the recreational venues and the modes of transportation used by the early tourists to Clinton County. 

May 17 – 12:30 pm, Plattsburgh Senior Center, 5139 North Catherine Street, Plattsburgh. Portraits from the turn of the 19^th century and the stories they might tell with CCHA Director Helen Nerska. CCHA has 17,000 portraits in their collection, and some of the most unusual and interesting will be shared along with the known and/or speculated background behind the photo.

May 21 – 6:45 pm, Lake Forest Retirement Community, 8 Lake Forest Drive, Plattsburgh. . The Golden Age of the Cigar Trade in Downtown Plattsburgh with CCHA Director Helen Nerska. For over 75 years thousands of cigars were produced in downtown Plattsburgh. Hear the story of our own flourishing cigar industry and the families that managed it using photos and artifacts from the CCHA Collection. 

May 23 – 6:30 pm, CCHA, 98 Ohio Avenue, Plattsburgh. The History of Railroads in Clinton County – Part 1 with Transportation Historian Dick Soper.  Inspired by CCHA photo albums of early area trains and the recently acquired collection of rail enthusiast Lawrence Duffina, Transportation Historian Dick Soper will begin to share the history of rail development which opened up Clinton County to new markets and eventually to new tourism and a past we now take for granted. The multi-part series will span the period from 1833 to present and include photographs, newspaper articles, and information from our large collection of railroad books recently added to our research library.

May 28 – 2:30 pm, Meadowbrook Healthcare, 154 Prospect Avenue, Plattsburgh. Discovering the Town of Peru with CCHA Director and Peru Historian Helen Nerska. First settled by Europeans in 1772 and established as a town in 1792, Peru’s history timeline reflects how small north country towns were created and developed into thriving villages.