The first Weekend in June

North Chuctanunda Creek Friends to Meet

   Friends of North Chuctanunda Creek Incorporated will celebrate National Trails Day at their first public meeting Saturday June 3, 2023 9:30 am at the Clock Tower Building, 37 Prospect Street in Amsterdam. 

   Maps will show completed trails and future construction.  There will be refreshments.

   An elevator to the top floor of the Clock Building will enable attendees to enjoy the view from the historic structure that once was part of Bigelow Sanford Carpet and later toymaker Coleco.

  Outdoors on June 3, John Naple will lead an optional mile-long walk along the North Chuctanunda Creek.  The walk will go through the former Sanford Mill Complex from Locust Avenue to Church Street, stop at the creek overlook in back of Kelloggs and Miller’s former linseed oil plant, and go down Church Street to opposite City Hall.

   The North Chuctanunda Creek provided water power to many of Amsterdam’s 19th century mills.

   “When this work is finished,” wrote the Otsego Farmer newspaper in 1933, “Luxuray Inc. will be one of the most complete and modern underwear plants in the United States, with a force of employees totaling from 250 to 300.”

Luxuray--an employment mainstay in 20th century Fort Plain

By Bob Cudmore

   A textile mill on Willett Street in Fort Plain produced women’s underwear, mainly panties, and was a major employer for most of the twentieth century.

   The multi-storied factory, which still stands on Willett Street, was occupied in 1874 by the Shipman Spring and Axle Works, previously located in nearby Springfield and Van Hornsville.

   Minden town historian Rob Carter wrote, “In the course of a business combination, the factory was removed to Chicago Heights, Illinois, in 1894. The loss of this industry to Fort Plain was keenly felt.”

   In about 1900, the Bailey brothers bought the Willett Street complex for their silk mill. That ran until 1931 when a company with the poetic sounding name of Luxuray bought the facility and embarked on an expansion.

   “When this work is finished,” wrote the Otsego Farmer newspaper in 1933, “Luxuray Inc. will be one of the most complete and modern underwear plants in the United States, with a force of employees totaling from 250 to 300.”

   The Gloversville Morning Herald that year reported Luxuray was implementing two shifts at its Fort Plain factory making rayon underwear. 

   The predominantly female Luxuray employees, most of them operating sewing machines, were regularly noticed in local newspapers for sporting events, employee parties and good deeds.  In 1945 many of the women from Luxuray used their own funds to help pay for a bingo party for soldiers recovering from war wounds at a Utica hospital.

  Some 250 employees and friends gathered for Luxuray’s annual clambake and dance in 1948.  There was also a softball game and tug-of-war.

   Luxuray sold its own line of panties and also supplied lingerie to stores like Macy’s and J.C. Penney’s.  Luxuray had a factory store in Fort Plain. 

   Luxuray had several corporate owners. In the 1950s it became part of the Beaunit Corporation.  The Fort Plain plant was sold to a group of Mohawk Valley investors in 1974.

   “They may not know it,” wrote reporter Charles Tobey in a feature story in the Courier Standard Enterprise in 1984, “But right now, thousands of women are wearing panties made in Fort Plain.”

   Harry Reeder, manager of the plant in the 1970s and 1980s, told the newspaper the number of employees had shrunk from several hundred to about 70 people. 

   "We have people here who have worked 40 or more years in this factory," Reeder said.

   “Ladies' panties always have been the dominant product at Luxuray, although some other items have been manufactured from time to time,” Reeder said, “We make everything from a skimpy string bikini up to a size 68-inch hip."

   Reeder added, “We like to think of ourselves as a good place to work.”

   Rolls of cotton, nylon, acetate and other materials were trucked to Fort Plain, and Luxuray’s cutting room staff was responsible for minimizing fabric waste.

   From there, the material went to the sewing machine operators, women who comprised the majority of the employees.

   Lightning apparently started a fire that damaged the roof of the Fort Plain factory in 1986.  The company kept going.

   Foreign competition led to Luxuray’s demise.  The company merged with Johnstown Knit in the closing years of the 20th century,

   By 1999 underwear production ceased.  People still work in the former Luxuray building, however.

   In 2000 the factory on Willett Street was purchased by entrepreneur Robert Hancock who established Glimmerglass Swim Spas and Pools in the building, manufacturers of fiberglass swimming pools. 

   Hancock also rents to several tenants including Chris and Julie Tackacs who operate Fort Plain Antiques and Salvage.  And the building houses a distillery, a high end machine shop and an office outfitting company.

Wednesday, May 24, 2023- Episode 95, January 24, 2016- Jewelry designer and historian Aja Raden with an account of how jewels have affected the course of history.  Raden is author of “Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession and How Desire Shapes the World.”

What makes a stone a jewel? What makes a jewel priceless? And why do we covet beautiful things? In this brilliant account of how eight jewels shaped the course of history, jeweler and scientist Aja Raden tells an original and often startling story about our unshakeable addiction to beauty and the darker side of human desire.

Thursday, May 25, 2023-Route 5-History on the highway.

Friday, May 26, 2023-Episode 476-Journalist Paul Kix documents how the 1963 desegregation campaign in Birmingham Alabama changed race relations in America.  Martin Luther King, Jr., was imprisoned and wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  Kix’s book is titled You Have to Be Prepared to Die before You Can Begin to Live.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Requiem: What remains is love by Maria Riccio Bryce will be performed this weekend—Friday, May 26 at 7 p.m. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Hackett Blvd., Albany; Saturday, May 27 at 7 p.m. First Reformed Church, 8 N. Church St., Schenectady and Sunday, May 28 at Trinity Lutheran Church, 42 Guy Park Ave., Amsterdam.

Maria Riccio Bryce and Bob Cudmore talk about her production of "Requiem"

Podcast 29 minutes

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Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, May 23, 2023

47 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:01AM

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