Every Monday we share a vintage image on the Essex on Lake Champlain Facebook page and invite our viewers to play some Vintage Essex Trivia. Have you ever seen the old photo above? Do you recognize the site in Essex?
Here is what the community had to say about it:
George Davis: As I understand it, the foreground gas dock must be where the dock now stands for Cabins on the Lake, and the background is the Old Dock. Unless I’m wrong…
Dianne Lansing: That’s the Old Dock in the background.
Lorraine Townsend Faherty: is this Morse’s Marina?
Steve Mckenna: I have many memories there and across the bay!…
Greater Adirondack Ghost and Tour Company (Plattsburgh, NY): Wonderful photo! Those beautiful wooden gas launches are amazing! It’s possible that some of these may have been made by the Lozier Company in Plattsburgh, who manufactured similar launches and engines here in the early 1900s. The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake has one in their collection. Lozier eventually switched to building cars and for a time, were among the most expensive automobiles in America. That backwards “N” on the sign is great.
Do you have more to share? Perhaps you recognize the men in the photo? Or maybe you know the name of the company that owned the gas dock or the owners’ names?
I wonder what happened to it? Anyone know that story? Please leave a comment and share what you know (or just your guesses).
Share Your Essex Artifacts
If you want to share your old photos of Essex (or brochures; postcards; menus; tickets; any artifact) on the blog please email us at editor [at] essexonlakechamplain [dot] com.
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- Vintage Photo: Split Rock Lighthouse (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
- Vintage Essex Photo: Marching Band (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
- Vintage Photo: Kestrel at Rosslyn Boathouse (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Rob says
The patriarch of the Lozier family was a visionary midwestern farm boy like Henry Ford and Walter Chrysler who made his fortune with sewing machines and then very expensive bicycles. He lived in an apartment at the Waldorf Astoria and came to Plattsburgh just once, to tell the delighted city council his elaborate plans for a boat building enterprise. The factory is where Georgia Pacific is now located and employed 150. Lozier also built a dam and powerhouse on the Saranac which ran his plant and the city, and sponsored a baseball team and brass band. The key to their boats was the slow turning but highly reliable engines. The old man died in 1904 and his eldest son, who was not much of a visionary, took over. While the son was frolicking in New York, the plant’s chief engineer and manager secretly built a prototype car that knocked the socks off sonny when they showed it to him. In 1905 they started selling cars from a showroom on Broadway, which also had a large pool where they displayed their boats. The cars rivaled Mercedes and Rolls Royce but didn’t evolve the way the competition did. In 1910 car production moved to Detroit and they were out of business 4 years later. However, the company lives on to this day as a manufacturer of commercial shelving. You can see both a Lozier car and boat at the Champlain Valley Transportation Museum, which is closed now for the winter.