Question: The photo here shows two bridges — one is new and the other is in the process of being dismantled. Do you know when and where the photo was taken? The building at the right, although now altered somewhat, still exists. Do you know what it is now and what else it has been called?
Last week’s answer: Last week’s photo shows the view from the west side of Oswego Street at the south side of the Baldwin Canal Bridge. Since the two buildings on the right were destroyed by fire in 1959, it was taken before then. Part of the building on the left still stands — the first floor. Originally built in the middle 1800s, it was known as the Union Hall. The rear collapsed in 1964 and was rehabbed into the building we have today.
Now that the location has been identified, let’s take a look at the water in the foreground. It doesn’t exist today — it’s now a parking lot. Before the advent of the internal combustion engine, businesses were dependent on water power, which was siphoned off the Seneca River through a series of sluice ways. The water in the photo was the remains of a sluice way that lead to the Amos Mill which stood where Baldwin Canal Park is now. At the time that the photo was taken, the water was becoming a nuisance and health hazard with stagnant and contaminated water. It, along with the remains of the Baldwin Canal that ran through the village, was finally completely filled in in 1965.
Christopher M. Mann responded with the correct answer on Facebook.
“This was the Baldwin canal used get around the present day rapids,” he wrote.
Email your guess to [email protected] or leave a message at 315-434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by noon Friday. If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo before the deadline, 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.
