Save the Date: PCHS Gala on September 25th.

Making a Living: Businesses in Philipstown and Beyond, 1850–1970

August 1st - December 19th

The West Point Foundry was the cornerstone of the local economy for almost a century (1817–1911), but it was hardly the only business in town. Making a Living: Businesses in Philipstown and Beyond, 1850–1970, the new exhibition at the Putnam County Historical Society’s Foundry School Museum, takes a look at the other commercial enterprises that formed the diversifying Philipstown economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Comprised of early photographs, books, prints, artifacts, and memorabilia drawn from private families and the PCHS’s own collection, the exhibition is organized geographically and provides historical portraits of five centers of local commerce: Cold Spring, Nelsonville, Garrison Landing, Manitou, and the Route 9/Albany Post Road corridor. It shows how local businesses developed as the community grew, illuminating an important dimension of Philipstown as a whole.

There are no General Motors or Microsofts here. The businesses depicted are the kind of essential enterprises that kept their owners — and the community — going through good times and bad: retail and hospitality establishments, transportation and construction companies, blacksmith shops, and real estate and other service firms.

PCHS members are invited to an opening reception on July 31, from 5:00 to 7:00. The exhibition opens to the public August 1, at 11:00 and will remain at the Foundry School Museum until December 19.

The museum is located at 63 Chestnut Street in the village of Cold Spring and open Wednesday-Sunday, 11-5. Admission is $5, children, $2, seniors and PCHS members, free. More information is available at 845-265-4010.