Local history museum needs new home...again!

by Dan McClelland

The dedicated board members of the Tupper Lake Historical Museum will be homeless again this fall for the second time in about three years years.

Several years ago the keepers of the local history museum were evicted by the Town of Tupper Lake board from their longtime headquarters in the former downtown firehall on Pine Street. Town officials found several major health and safety issues with the old frame two-story structure and served notice on the museum volunteers to find another place for their collection.

The town later sold the place to Eric Shaheen and a business partner who are renovating it into apartments.

When town leaders notified the museum volunteers they had to leave the Pine St. place, leaders of Next Stop! Tupper Lake train station group offered them the use of the large room at the station for their collection on a temporary basis. The board members and their families moved the museum’s hundreds of artifacts to the station where they have been on display to the local and visiting public for the past two summers and early falls.

The museum board members enjoyed their time at the expansive main room at the station and hoped it might someday be the museum’s permanent home.

The volunteers on the museum board will staff the museum at the station again this summer, beginning on opening day on Saturday, May 29. The place will be open Saturdays during June from 10a.m. to 4p.m. Starting in July it will be open six days a week and closed on Sundays, same hours.

The museum drew over 1,000 visitors the first summer at the station and about 800 during last summer's pandemic.

The six-day-a-week operation will stop on Labor Day and the museum will be open Saturdays in September, before closing on Columbus Day.

The large room in the station will be the headquarters for the northern end of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, which is operated by the Adirondack Railroad Preservation Society (ARPS), based in Remsen, at the southern end of the Adirondack Railroad line.

In the past two years ARPS has been paying a generous rental stipend each month to reserve the station for its use when train travel returns to Tupper Lake as early as next year. The money has helped

The New York State Department of Transportation has plans to reconstruct the rails and ties into a functioning railroad from Big Moose, currently ARPS' most northerly point, to Tupper Lake. It’s part of the two-fold state initiative to rebuild the railroad line to Tupper Lake and remove the tracks from Tupper Lake to Lake Placid for the creation of a new hiking, biking and snowmobile trail, expected to open in 2023.

Plans are in the works by the state DOT to develop a turn-around facility just beyond the station and other train traffic amenities there to accommodate the line rehabilitation to Tupper Lake. According to reports, a public information session is expected to be held by the state agency sometime this summer.

“This is indeed bitter sweet news,” Dan McClelland, chairman of Next Stop! Tupper Lake said this week. “We’re excited the ARPS train operation is coming to Tupper Lake and our building will finally be a train station, as the community built it to be!”

“However, I’m deeply saddened our museum has no home again! As a community we have an obligation to protect and cherish our local history and our museum was the tool to do that!”

Mr. McClelland is also a member of the museum board. Other museum leaders are Kathleen Lefebvre, president, Dian Connor, vice president, Jeannette Keniston, treasurer, Peg Mauer, secretary, Jim Lanthier, Jr., Jon Kopp, Joe Kimpflen, Mary Richer, Shirley Lavigne, Stuart and Laurie Amell and Marlene Hyde.

President Kathleen Lefebvre said members of her board tried unsuccessfully to convince the not for profit ARPS to permit them to share space in the great room of the station with them. The collection would have been tailored back to allow enough space for the company to run its ticket-selling and other operations there, but Justin Gonyo, ARPS executive director, ruled that out.

Several weeks ago he asked the museum organizers to plan to be out early this fall, so he and his board members can finalize their plans for new excursions and various rail offered that will be offered out of Tupper Lake. Part of the ARPS' plan is to erect wall partitions for new offices inside the station.

Earlier this year, during a meeting with museum volunteers, he predicted train travel to and from Tupper Lake could commence as early as next year.

“We think the people who come here by train and to ride the train would have very much enjoyed our historical collection during their time waiting in the station,” said Dian Connor this week. “It makes very good sense to us to share space there, and to enhance the train travelers' experience by viewing our displays while they are visiting here.”

Stuart Amell, who recently rejoined the museum board with his wife, Laurie, thought the ARPS leaders were being very short-sighted in their plans for the station by not wanting the museum there. He said he thought there was room for both a train station and a museum in the spacious quarters of the train station. His fellow board members agree with him.

Mr. Amell said many train stations around the country include historical displays and exhibits which travelers find fascinating.

“Our immediate need right now is finding a place to relocate to,” stated Mrs. Lefebvre. “For the winter, at least, we are going to have to put most of our collection in storage. The lack of storage places right now in Tupper Lake presents an even bigger problem for us in the immediate future!”

“Our next move will be to a permanent home once and for all,” a determined Jeannette Keniston promised. She vividly remembers the work it took to move he collection from the Pine St. building to the train station three years ago.

On the horizon for the museum board members to tackle will be an ambitious fundraising campaign to generate the financial means to either buy or build a suitable replacement for the station quarters.

“We’re looking for a site on a main travel corridor here for the maximum visitor exposure,” board member Jim Lanthier told the Free Press. A large number of artifacts in the museum were donated by Mr. Lanthier, including audio-visual equipment which screen historic photographs of the late Kathleen Bigrow at the far end of the big room. He said during a museum meeting Friday he will be picking up his material which he’ll personally store until a new place is found for a museum.

There was considerable frustration expressed by Peg Mauer and Mary Richer and others at Friday’s meeting about the train company’s notice of eviction.

The museum board Friday directed Mr. McClelland to contact Justin Gonyo again to see if a more flexible schedule can be arranged for their departure from the station.

During a telephone conversation Monday Mr. Gonyo agreed to meet with Mr. McClelland and Mrs. Lefebvre in early summer to further discuss their space requirements and to try to figure out what historical displays there may be room for in the big room once his rail company moves in.

Mrs. Lefebvre said her group is looking to hang as many of their artifacts on the interior walls of the station as possible, perhaps with new shelves and wall displays.

Mr. Gonyo said he is amenable to that.

Anyone with space in a local building where the museum leaders can safely store the rest of their artifacts until a new home for the museum can be found is asked to contact any of the board members listed above.