By Bill Kleppel Fame and celebrity tend to spout from the same fountainheads of publicity. Actors, athletes, politicians, musicians, entrepreneurs, or artists of any stripe, are bestowed with accolades, whether deservedly or not, by the usual media guttersnipe. A story going viral can make a person a household name in less than

Poughkeepsie Public Library District Blog Local History

27.11.2024

Gunshots on Main Street: “Vice and Crime Go Hand in Hand” – The Wilbur Van Tassell Murder

In January of 1904, up the road from the Hudson Day Line Pier, and near the Poughkeepsie Train Station, a deadly shooting took place outside Frank Long’s Elberon Hotel at 50 Main Street. This crime wasn’t “cut and dry,” nor was it random. There was pre-meditation on both sides of the

Poughkeepsie Public Library District Blog Local History

20.12.2024

The Explosion of the Reindeer

By Shannon Butler If you read the title above and immediately thought of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer blowing up into a million pieces with bits of antler flying everywhere, no one could blame you. Very few people today know that there was once a steamship called Reindeer and that it

Poughkeepsie Public Library District Blog Local History

04.01.2025

194 Main Street – Dunwoody Brothers Soap & Candle Factory

By Bill Kleppel William Dunwoody and his brother George both immigrated to the United States from Ireland in the 1820s. In 1866, William purchased a soap and candle factory that was run out of an old schoolhouse at 194 Main Street. Over the next 35 years, William, George, and William’s seven children,

home›Poughkeepsie Public Library District Blog Local History

Poughkeepsie Public Library District Blog Local History

History

Dick Wood – Creepy Tales of the “Hudson River Grappler”

Gunshots on Main Street: “Vice and Crime Go Hand in Hand” – The Wilbur Van Tassell Murder

The Explosion of the Reindeer

194 Main Street – Dunwoody Brothers Soap & Candle Factory

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Poughkeepsie Public Library District Blog Local History