A New Book of Old Images Celebrates the Historic Belgrades
Dozens of outstanding historic photos fill the pages of the Images of America book The Belgrades Lakes Region by Eric Hooglund, but it is the captions that bring history to life. Buildings identified, dates clarified, interesting anecdotes and names attached to people previously unnamed fill the pages and provide a chronicle of the Belgrade Lakes area.
Divided into seven chapters outlining specific categories of the region, including tourism, camps, industry and change, the book invites both page-by-page reading and random thumbing through in search of a personal connection or the answer to a long-held question about times of yore.
Gone into the archives of memories and pictures are the many farms that once dominated the local economy. Also gone is the era of fishing guides and the distinctive double-ended Belgrade guide boat, the grand hotels, the train stations, the buckboard wagons that transported summer folks to their camps and the fashions and hair styles of the day. But many buildings and street scenes remain and are chronicled in the book.
The granite house in Belgrade Lakes Village, for example, has changed very little except for windows added when the building was converted from a store to a house. We learn from the photo that the granite for this 1838 structure was quarried from Vienna Mountain across the lake and that two stone masons were paid 50¢ a day and all the rum they could drink to haul the slabs across frozen Long Pond in the winter.
Another familiar building is the unaltered barn at Winterberry Farm where vegetables and flowers are popular at the farmstand today. Completed in 1888‑1889, the barn’s unique design provides natural cooling to keep stored hay from catching fire.
The book is fun and informative to read and a great gift for the many visitors and vacationers who have connections to youth camps and scenes around the lakes. It can be purchased through the Belgrade Historical Society or at Oliver & Friends Bookshop on Main Street in Belgrade Lakes Village.
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