Question: This photo appeared in the Messenger in 1948. The photo, taken by Mark Chapman, shows the leaders of a local organization that was formed in 1928 and had grown to a membership of 600 over its 20-year course. The organization continues yet today. Do you know which organization was featured in the photo? Can you identify any of the gentlemen?
Last week’s answer: Last week’s photos were a Barnes Dairy milk bottle and a house, and the main question was how were they related.
Barnes Dairy, once located on the left side of Salina Street just over the railroad bridge, started in business when Aaron Barnes bought the Lewis Dairy milk business upon the retirement of Palmer Lewis in 1938. It was run by the Barnes family until 1955. Sadly, Aaron’s son Allan was killed the same year, when the plane he was riding in crashed. After that the dairy was operated by George Brigati. The dairy had a large fleet of milk trucks that did daily home and school delivery. When the dairy store was operating, it was very popular, advertising 30 different flavors of ice cream.
The house pictured was also owned by Barnes and was next to the dairy. It is one of the oldest in the village, having been built in 1837 by the Clarence Curtis(s) family, who had a large farm that encompassed most of Curtis Avenue. In April 1952, Aaron Barnes wanted to build an addition to the dairy and the house was in the way, so he got permission from the village to have it moved cross lots to its present location on Curtis Avenue.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
