Days Gone By: Images from the Eagle Archives
A look back at self-service stores in Pittsfield, from Henry Kahl’s shoe store on North Street in 1913 and the First National Stores first supermarket in 1949, to department stores like Royal Discount and Zayre's in the 1950s.
Living at the foot of Mount Greylock, "Eagle Eye" photographer Bill Tague developed great passion for the highest mountain in Massachusetts and spent many years advocating for the preservation of the land. His photos now hang in the Mount Greylock State Reservation Visitor Center.
On this day in 1963: President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25 a day of national mourning following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Eagle Archives, Nov. 12, 1938: With the passing of the Shaker settlement at Colonie, N.Y., sister Mary Frances Dahn and Grace M. Dahn of the South Family, have started life anew at the North Family of Shakers on Mt. Lebanon.
Back in the baby boom years, our parents thought our music was terrible. Some 60-plus years later, I can’t deny that I react to the changing times just like my parents.
A passage in a 19th century history of Pittsfield recounts the story of a farmer that found a Jewish artifact while working his fields. Some say that is evidence to support the theory that Native Americans were descended from the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.
Pittsfield's School Department adopted AAA’s national School Safety Patrol program in 1932 with the first members at Tucker School. While it was initially staffed with students, adults joined the ranks in 1953 as city roads got busier.
On Oct. 11, 1986: President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks in Reykjavik, Iceland, concerning arms control and human rights.
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Today in History
On Dec. 7, 1941: The Empire of Japan launched an air raid on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as well as targets in Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines and Wake Island; the United States declared war against Japan the next day.
On this day in 1907: The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia.
On this day in 1979: 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.
On this day in 1993: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin.
On Dec. 1, 1991: Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
This Story in History
From the Eagle Archives
Eagle Archives, Dec. 9, 1948: After a year of trying, with the help of the School Department, the Lakewood Civic Association finally got permission to use Hibbard School as a recreation center.
Eagle Archives, Dec. 8, 1954: As far as the company bookkeeper is concerned, Charles W. Curtin has retired after 32 years as an Underwood Typewriter service man in the Pittsfield area. However, he didn't look like a retired man last Monday morning when he slipped back into the habit of opening up the Underwood office, 129 Elm St.
Eagle Archives, Dec. 7, 1955: During his 75 years of painting, Dennis Alcott (Ali) Haskins, "The Painter of Savoy," has never sold one painting but has given an unknown number to his friends. More than 100 were collected at his home for an exhibition at the Berkshire Museum.
Eagle Archives, Dec. 6, 1955: The 10-family congregation of 89-year-old Trinity Church is not planning to let any such happening as a rotted steeple keep it from worshipping in the historic Van Deusenville structure.
Eagle Archives, Dec. 5, 1958: If you were in any condition to dance around here in the 1930s, you'll remember "Bill Dehey's Merry Makers" who wowed college kids all over the East.
Eagle Archives, Dec. 3, 1949: A small house finished in imitation brick shingling set back on a clearing some 300 yards off Cemetery Road is the new home of a 75-year-old Hinsdale man, Clayton E. Grover, who built the house himself so he could live "in independence" with his granddaughter, Miss Elizabeth Gaudette, and her dog, Sandy.
Eagle Archives, Dec. 2, 1970: St. Luke's Church in Lanesboro, the oldest stone church in Berkshire County, holds a perennial fascination for lovers of architecture, but past hopes of rescuing it have repeatedly been dashed because of the cost.
Mysteries from the Morgue
Did the first written account of maple sugar being made in this country come from the Berkshires? "It Happened First in Berkshire," a column of The Berkshire Eagle, declared it as so April 3, 1940: …
Nor'easter expected? Blizzard in the forecast? Either prediction is a sure sign that media outlets will dig up photos and facts from historic storms of years past. Sure to be included are the Blizzard of 1888 and the Blizzard of 1978. But were those the worst storms to hit the Berkshires? To find out, we hit The Eagle's archives.
On Oct. 18, 1918, 700 workers of the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Co. were out sick with "the grippe," silencing a third of the Berkshire Mills' 6,500 looms.
Three weeks earlier, the town had reported its first cases of Spanish influenza — 16 sick and one death. Now, the town had 850 recorded cases and 28 deaths from the Spanish flu or flu-related pneumonia. But, town health officials suspected the number was much higher, around 2,000 infected individuals.
Only a few things could separate the Pierce twins — a broken shoulder, a marriage and death.
Mary Abbe and Martha Anne, who held the title of "oldest twins in New England" from January 1929 until August 1934, spent the majority of their 90 years together, living in the house in which they were born in Savoy.
Mysteries From the Morgue: Against the vote? The Anti-Susan B. Anthony also came from the Berkshires
On Saturday, Nov. 5, 1932, just days before the presidential election, Anna Laurens Dawes, 81, known as the "grand lady of Pittsfield," took to the airwaves to urge every Republican to head to the polls that Tuesday.
Being from the Berkshires, birthplace of the most famous suffragette, Susan B. Anthony, Dawes' ardent push for voters to head to the polls doesn't seem out of place — until you consider she, just a dozen years prior, was the leading anti-suffragette of Western Massachusetts, if not the state.
Lucretia Williams, hearing the ax sing, rushed from her nearby home into the center of town and thrust herself between the axeman and the tree, declaring, “You will have to cut through me first.”
NORTH ADAMS — Anna Helen (Crofts) McCuen lived a secret literary life.
The crowd gathered at the Hinsdale Mining Co. on Oct. 7, 1899, held its breath as the hammer fell upon the clay crucible in the center of the room. It cracked, splinters flying into the air, as a …
SAVOY — Bent and twisted trees are not an unusual site in Berkshire County, thanks to Natalie Jeremijenko's "Tree Logic" at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The art installation's …
SAVOY — "She must have been beautiful once, for weatherbeaten as she is, she is very fine looking, and her straight nose and black bright eyes bear evidence of better days ... She is amazingly …
During the summer of 1933, Otis was invaded by a nudist cult.At least that's how a headline in the Boston Globe on May 24, 1933, described the pending establishment of a nudist colony in the township …
ADAMS — When an MTV logo was painted across the front of the Wellspeak's home in August 1988, it wasn't part of some elaborate prank. The graffiti-style logo, in various shades of green and …
The best of the best of Berkshire County, chosen by Berkshire Eagle readers
1Berkshire presents the official guide to the 66th Annual Fall Foliage Parade.
The annual guide to preparing your home for the coming New England winter.
Berkshire Community College presents an annual roundup of forty young leaders making a difference in Berkshire County.
Embrace warmer weather with the Berkshire Eagle's guide to backyard improvement.
The Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires presents the 2022 Berkshire Nonprofit Awards
