SHARON –The Sharon Fire Department helped install the Sharon Playhouse summer season marquee Tuesday, May 19, unveiling this year's MainStage and YouthStage productions.
"The moment our marquee goes up for the season is when we finally feel like 'Game On! It's showtime," said an enthusiastic Michael Baldwin, the Playhouse's education and community director.
"We're so grateful for the Sharon Fire Department for their support each year."
Lakeville Journal
This Week
Drifting is coming to Lime Rock Park once a year under a new agreement with town officials. Some see it as an exciting addition for motorsports fans, while others have concerns about noise and the impact on the surrounding community.
Should Lime Rock Park be allowed to host an annual drifting event?
Send your responses to social@lakevillejournal.com by Friday, Sept. 4 at 10 a.m. or comment on Facebook or Instagram.
We’ll publish a selection in next week’s paper.
Lakeville Journal
Before we move the Lakeville Train Station
The first train arrived in Lakeville from Hartford in December 1871 carrying twenty passengers, transforming our community from a relatively isolated iron-and-manufacturing village into one connected to the wider world.
Passenger service ended in 1928, but freight service was still going when Frederick and Ruth Baer moved to Lakeville in the 1930s. After it ended, Frederick helped give the unused station a second life. In 1950, he donated securities enabling the Town to purchase the depot and the abandoned railroad right-of-way. He also gave the Town the parcel that became Bauer Park—and established a substantial fund to help maintain those gifts into perpetuity.
In the 1950s, the Bauer Fund helped renovate the train station for new occupants, including the Salisbury Welfare Association (now Salisbury Family Services) and Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association. In 1996, local radio station WQQQ-FM 103 took up residence. They stopped broadcasting in 2011, and the building has been vacant ever since.
Today the station is part of the Local Historic District and also the National Register Historic District which cites its architectural importance and historic role as a transportation hub. Preserving it isn’t nostalgia; it’s civic responsibility to save an asset that contributes to the town’s historic character which makes it a desirable place to live and visit and invest in.
But preserving the station doesn’t necessarily mean moving it.
At a special Town Meeting in September, residents will be asked to approve a $611,000 bid to move the 155-year-old Depot approximately 19 feet back from Ethan Allen Street.
The primary reason for the move is reportedly to break a pattern of delivery trucks clipping the building. But before spending $611,000, shouldn’t we determine whether that problem can’t be solved in a less draconian way?
Imagine a landscaped buffer along the vulnerable side of the station. Rather than highway-style bollards, granite posts could be designed to resemble remnants of railroad infrastructure. Once a civil/traffic engineer calculates the required impact resistance, a preservation architect could design a plan that attractively incorporates reinforcements.
The savings could then be devoted to stabilizing and restoring the station where it has stood since 1871.
We should also understand the financing. Yes, State Historic Preservation Office grants can help restore the building, but SHPO’s Historic Restoration Fund is capped at $200,000 and requires 1:1 matching funds.
According to the Town’s latest audited financial statements, the Bauer Fund held $2,645,461 as of June 30, 2025. The fund is subject to restrictions, of course. But there is precedent for using its spendable income for Town purposes. In 2009, when Salisbury needed additional money to construct the Senior Center at the Town Grove, a Town Meeting authorized the use of $180,000 from income earned by the Bauer Fund.
Could Bauer Fund income similarly help preserve the historic station Bauer himself helped the Town acquire?
Perhaps moving the station will ultimately prove necessary. But before we spend $611,000 relocating a building that’s over a century and a half old, let’s make sure we’ve examined every alternative.
Helen Klein Ross
Lakeville
Environment concerns with drifting, racing
I am Lincoln Barnett.
Smoke and gasoline are horrible for the environment. For example, “GridLife brings racing, drifting, and new fans to Lime Rock Park” from The Lakeville Journal. It is horrible for the environment.
In the picture that car is spraying out so much smoke from the exhaust. It’s fun to watch the races but horrible for the environment.
Lincoln Rand Barnett
Third Grade,
Salisbury Central School
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Kathy Herald-Marlowe
Recently a young friend exclaimed to me “Why do we have Labor Day anyway?”I found myself rebutting his genuine query with “Don’t you remember the dastardly working conditions of the 1800’s onward with the rising Industrial Revolution?” Of course he didn’t – most don’t.
The Department of Labor, so far still in existence, defines Labor Day’s purpose: “to honor the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements within the United States.”Internationally, labor day has been celebrated since 1886, as International Labor Day or May Day to honor workers and support worker rights.
In the US, the First Labor Day was celebrated with a parade and festivities in 1882, in New York City. State up state followed with Labor Days, until 1894, when a particularly violent Pulman’s Strike shut down all rail traffic West of Chicago from May through July. The strike included 250,000 workers and boycotters in the Pulman factory as well as those staffing trains -30 were killed, 57 wounded.The Strike ended with an injunction upheld by the Supreme Court favoring the owners - the strikers were defeated -crushed by federal troops. To quell massive negative response, Grover Cleveland, then President, immediately asked congress to pass bill S.730 making Labor Day a public holiday. – a celebration of workers (it wasn’t fully public until the 1930’s, initially covering only federal workers.)
Union protests continued for decades demanding an 8-hour working day, a 5-day work week and illegality of child labor – many labor/management conflicts in the late 1800’s and early 1900’ were violent. The initial demands of workers and their unions was for shorter work days, upgrading harsh to dangerous work conditions (ventilation, railings, safety gear), steady wages, ceasing child labor.Work days were 10-16 hours a day, 6 days a week, no extra pay for overtime, no job security, wages could be cut immediately. In 1914, the Ford Motor Company cut shifts to 8 hours and doubled pay to increase productivity, then in 1938 Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act setting a national limit on hours, a minimal wage, and requiring extra pay for overtime. Labor had an 8-hour day, child labor was illegal, a hundred-year tussle.
In addition to Labor Day’s purpose, it is regarded as a major time marker in the US calendar. On September 1 (first Monday) it is half way between Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Memorial Day was once the end of the school year and Labor Day its beginning. Back-to-School excitement and expense continues as new backpacks, water bottles, clothes, pens and pencils, etc, etc. are the major focus of families. Schools continue to start after Labor Day, or just before. Labor Day is considered the end of summer – a highly popular travel time.
In the fashion world, Labor Day was distinctive as once it wasn’t proper to wear white after Labor Day just as wearing white before Memorial Day was forbidden.These taboos may continue for shoes, purses but winter white is popular, a newer trend.
The fading of knowledge of Labor Day represents the alteration in the nation’s economic and social environment.In 1979, 20 million workers in non-agricultural jobs were in unions. 22% of workers were union members primarily in a manufacturing heavy world of work. Today in a service economy but 8% of workers are unionized, the construction of service jobs makes organizing harder with much to assist management for union busting.Starbucks and Amazon are two major headliners under siege – more traditional auto, oil, health care are ongoingly unionized.
Gallup polling indicates that Americans approval of unions is currently steady between 68 and 71% for the past five years . Approval rarely below 60%.
So have a cookout, go to a parade, attend a free Washington Symphony Orchestra performance. Celebrate Labor Day, enjoy its festivities, its back-to-school shopping, its long history. In a nation bowing to Billionaires, here is to the middle class, the working class, labor.
Kathy Herald-Marlowe lives in Sharon.
Norma Bosworth
125 years ago — 1901
What Lakeville needs is a good ambitious dog catcher and a Frankfurter factory. Too much dog.
Mrs. Barbary Leddy of Mount Carmel died last Friday of mosquito bites. She was literally tormented to death. Her body was a mass of bites and she scratched the surface on her leg until a vein opened and she bled to death.
A stalk of field corn 14 feet high was left at this office this week. Twas grown by Ernest Wooden of Chapinville on the old Lee farm owned by the Scoville family.
FOR SALE — The “Polly Reed” place so called, situated near Lakeville, consisting of 10 acres of land and large house thereon. For terms inquire of Donald T. Warner, trustee.
LIME ROCK — An eleven-pound boy, now a week old, is at the home of Michael Dunn. If the stork continues to favor this village as it has of late, a baby show can be easily arranged next spring.
LIME ROCK — The big white stone beside the road on Town Hill has been buried and a stalk of golden rod planted upon the grave. A commendable job, as some horses were afraid of the bowlder.
LIME ROCK — Mike Hickey, a charcoal teamster, left his team standing hitched to a load of coal last Saturday, then went back in the woods to help another wagon. There was live coal in the load. It soon blazed up and singed the horses. They started down the mountain on a run and it looked as if the devil was out for a ride. The horses finally got loose from the load, but the wagon and coal were destroyed.
100 years ago — 1926
Home made stills continue to turn out raw booze. We suppose they are called stills because after drinking their output, the drinker is apt to be still for the rest of eternity.
50 years ago — 1976
CANAAN — Six young men have recently cleaned a portion of the Blackberry River of debris and logjams which were causing flooding problems. They were employed under the Federal government’s Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) project. The program employed five area boys, Mike Novicki of Canaan, John and Tom Warner of Canaan, Peter Schultz of Lakeville and Ivan Barron of Canaan. They were supervised by Mike Magistrali of Torrington. They worked for the town of Canaan at various jobs throughout the summer and received $2.31 an hour and worked 35 hours a week.
A House Subcommittee heard only favorable testimony Friday in Washington D.C. on a proposed bill to study the Housatonic River for possible inclusion in the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers System, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Toby Moffett (D-6th).
LAKEVILLE — Edward E. Kleinschmidt, who makes his summer home on Twin Lakes, will celebrate his 101st birthday next Thursday with a quiet dinner party with his family. Mr. Kleinschmidt, a pioneer in the field of electronic communications, is the inventor of the first teletype machine. He was active in the field of telecommunications until his 95th year. Still active, he likes to dine out every evening and spends his summers in Connecticut and his winters in Florida.
A clean attic and more than $6,700 in the coffers were the results of the auction last Saturday at the Holley-Williams House, a historic home owned and maintained by the Salisbury Association.
It seems there are escargots in Lake Wononscopomuc, not just snails. The gastropod mollusks, which some residents had suspected of being a factor in the annoying epidemic of “lake bites” suffered by swimmers earlier in the summer, have turned out to be “a delicacy, and very edible,” according to the town’s former health director, Dr. Henry Gallup. The sudden elevation of the snails to gourmet-food status apparently resulted from a visit by staff members of the state Department of Health last Wednesday. Dr. Gallup said the mollusks have been labeled as “Japanese mystery snails.”
FALLS VILLAGE — A well-kept secret met its demise Aug. 25th with the announcement that Meredith and Marion Bierce, twin brother and sister, have celebrated their 70th birthdays. Miss Bierce said the subject of their age has been a matter of much speculation among neighborhood children who have ventured many a guess. One youngster observed that since the Bierces are now a great-great aunt and uncle, they “must be really old.” Mr. Bierce has spent most of his life as a dairy farmer in the Northwest Corner, and “retired” from that profession 10 years ago. He immediately found employment in New Hartford, shaping the necks for guitars. He said “I’ll never retire until I have to. What’s the use of sitting around?” Miss Bierce made a home for her brother over the years, taking care of the house, and occasionally babysitting neighborhood children, a practice she gave up only a few years ago. “Mostly I just got the dishes dirty and then I cleaned them up,” she said with a wide smile.
CANAAN — Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Gandolfo Sr. of Route 44 in East Canaan, were guests of honor this weekend at a party celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Mr. and Mrs. Gandolfo were married Aug. 26, 1926, in old St. Joseph’s Church on North Elm Street.
Bicron Electronics’ new addition added 5000 square feet to the Canaan manufacturer’s plant space. According to a spokesman for the company, the project was undertaken because it was thought to be a good idea to make physical additions for the future now, when business is slow. President Fred Kent said the company is optimistic about opportunities in the economy, although it will be “rough sledding.”
25 years ago — 2001
New Yorkers and other out-of-staters flocked to Connecticut last weekend with the hope of purchasing the winning ticket for the near-record $295 million drawing in the Powerball game. Convenience stores and package stores along the border of New York were kept busy with a steady stream of business. “This is worse than the last time. It’s a zoo,” Walt Gisselbrecht, manager of the Lakeville Patco store, said Saturday afternoon.
SALISBURY — Jacqueline Kuhn teaches high school in Washington, D.C. She came back to Amesville at the end of the school year to visit her parents, Anita and Jack Kuhn, but she didn’t take a bus or plane. She walked. On July 15, Ms. Kuhn had a friend drive her to Harper’s Ferry, W. Va., and the next morning she set off on the Appalachian Trail. Thirty-one days later, she crossed the Housatonic River at Falls Village and walked to her home on Sugar Hill Road. She had walked 470 miles.
State Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30) has completed his seventh session in the General Assembly without missing a vote on the floor. Mr. Roraback was present and cast his vote 493 times on the Senate floor during this year’s regular and special sessions. He was required by Senate rules to abstain from three votes for which he was present. “My constituents work hard and I try my best to emulate the standard they set in my work in Hartford,” he said. “It is impossible for me to represent my constituents unless I am present to cast my vote.”
These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
Alec Linden
KENT – On Sept. 14, Kent residents will once again have the chance to weigh in on a controversial proposed ordinance that would ban food trucks across town.
The legislation was tabled during a July 29 meeting after residents said they were confused by certain provisions in the draft language. Several other proposed ordinances were approved at the meeting.
As written, the ordinance would ban commercial food truck operations anywhere in town, except when trucks are temporarily hired for short-term private or town events.
Residents took issue with how public and private events would be treated differently. Under the proposed ordinance, food trucks operating at private events would not be permitted to sell food to individual customers, while trucks brought in by the town would.
“Why is it good for here, but not good for there?” resident Mike Gawel asked during the July meeting.
Residents will have another opportunity to voice their thoughts and concerns at the Sept. 14 meeting. The idea of a food truck ban has bounced between town agencies for years, but no enforceable legislation has been adopted. Most support for such a law has come from restaurant owners, who have argued that food trucks create unfair competition because they are not subject to the property taxes and other overhead costs faced by brick-and-mortar businesses.
The current proposal follows local crepe maker Grégoire Pye’s effort to secure a semi-permanent location for his food truck business earlier this year. At the time, he said the town had been inhospitable to his business, leading him to consider leaving Kent entirely.
The public meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall, with an option to attend online via Zoom. It will also include a discussion of a proposal to move the town’s Veterans Memorial from its current location outside Swift House to a new site next to Town Hall.
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