History Shouldn't Be Difficult
And yet, New York State Makes It So
The state of New York is uninterested in making history easy.
That’s the only conclusion I can make after discovering the historic sign for Morrot’s Boulder on NY 77 in Indian Falls. To be clear, I’ll stop for anything having to do with rocks and boulders so I wanted to see this boulder that was Morrot’s.
But.. A) The sign is for an amusement park that used to be called Boulder Amusement Park and was owned and run by Phil Morrot. Get it? Morrot’s Boulder (then in smaller font that you can’t read from the road) Amusement Park.
And… B) NY posts historic signs in places that are clearly not meant to be read. We discovered this recently when it came to George Washington’s sword and a train wreck.
In the case of Morrot’s Boulder, there was no pull over, no parking street side and - this is real - a sign right next to the historic sign that read, private property, no parking! So… what am I supposed to do here? I managed to take a pic from my car window while cars behind me honked.
Anyway, you thought this was about a boulder, didn’t you? Nope. No boulder. But the amusement park did seem like a pretty cool place, a slice of mid-last century Americana that lasted from 1949 to 1970 and featured a famous merry-go-round and miniature steam train.
The merry-go-round was dismantled and collectors now pay big money for those animals like the elephant you see below.
At the time, many locals apparently referred to the boulder park as the Disney of Western New York. Today, it’s just a memory with a few old pavilions rotting away and a street side sign that nobody can read.
So what do you say, New York? Let’s make history a little bit easier, can’t we?
Are there any historic markers out there you think we’d like or that drive you crazy trying to read? Let us know!
I've been hunting but it is years back. If I find it, I will send it to you! Haven't seen me much? Two weeks ago my daughter and family arrived from Colorado for their annual two week visit. The next day the youngest tested positive for Covid, the following day everyone else. Don and I still negative ... but can you imagine the whining of a seven and a nine year old not allowed to do the things in Maine they wait for every year? We have so many stars in our crown!
One of my two Covid projects was to find as many of the historical markers in New Hampshire as I could and photograph them. Of course we could not find them all but for my husband and I, who only moved to NH in 2018 (after many, many vacations), it was a great way to learn the geography of the state, as well as some history fragments. Opposite to your NY state experience, I was excited to find that little pullover areas were cleared for each marker. To this day, we continue to look for them. I attended a talk by Michael Bruno, who wrote a thick guidebook about the markers.
Getting back to New York state, though, I grew up in New York state. I heard through the grapevine that a marker was newly placed in my hometown. So I pulled up a map of NY state markers and there are SO many that it would be impossible to find them all!!! And especially since the parking is not provided. New Hampshire does this so well!!!!! And the number of markers is completely do-able.
Now ask me about my other Covid project - covered bridges. :-)