Granville Then & Now – State Route 149 repair in village to include sidewalks

By Erik Pekar, Town Historian

September was a promising start for the 1970 Granville Golden Horde football team, and October followed suit. Granville started off with a game on Oct. 3 against St. Mary’s Academy of Glens Falls. Granville won, 7-6, the first time Granville had defeated St. Mary’s since 1953. The winning record continued through the month as the team won 13-12 at Ticonderoga on Oct. 10 and beat Fort Edward, 42-12. At Corinth under the lights on Oct. 23, Granville won, 42-8. With a nonleague contest on Oct. 31 against Burr and Burton of Manchester, Vermont, Granville also won, 28-24. Granville ended October with a league record of 7-0.

Now it was time for the last and most important, game of the season: the Granville-Whitehall game. The contest was held on Nov. 7 in Granville. There were admission tickets for the game, which were sold at the gate and were available to purchase in advance at Scotties and Wilson’s in Granville, and likely at select Whitehall businesses as well.

Granville lost the big game that year to Whitehall,32-7. Whitehall scored first but failed the extra point and Granville then scored and kicked an extra point. These seven points would be the last time the Horde would score during the 1970 season. There were several more chances during the first half where the Horde could have scored, as well as one in the third quarter, but mistakes prevented them from seizing those opportunities.

The 1970 season was not a bad one for the Horde, the record being at 7-1. The loss to Whitehall prevented Granville from receiving the Northern Conference “division B” championship award. This was the second year with Bud Reed as coach, and the Horde did rather well the previous year as well.

The writer of the article on the 1970 Granville-Whitehall game ended by making a prediction for the 1971 season: “The Horde lost two games last year – they lost just one this year. If the pattern holds true, Mr. Reed and next year’s Big Blue will be the champions.”


Granville’s decorative building outline of Christmas lights on Main Street and West Main Street, introduced last November, was well-received by current and former area residents, as well as travelers passing through Granville. This month the scope of buildings was expanded, with new light installations on more than 20 buildings, most of them on East Main Street and Quaker Street. These buildings include Country Horizon Realty, Gemini Fitness, the 13 East Main building, and Williams Cleaners on East Main Street; Winn Manufacturing, American Hardware, and several street facing buildings of Telescope Casual Furniture on Church Street; Buddha Shala, Granville True Value, the Bardin building, Pine Grove Diner, Pine Grove Motel, What’s Up Dawgs, and DC Realty. The funding came from the Christmas light fund, with a donation by the Great Meadow Federal Credit Union. The lights were installed by a small group of volunteers, the same group who installed the lights on the first set of buildings last year.

Before these decorative building Christmas lights were first installed on Main Street last year, there were a few buildings that had similar lights. The Slate Valley Museum and the Pember Library and Museum have had such lights for a few years. The Pember elevator addition, constructed in 2018 and 2019, after the Pember’s lights were installed, at present does not have the decorative Christmas lights outlining that part of the building. Hopefully, lights will be installed on the Pember elevator building soon.


Construction on the Middle Granville Dollar General has sped along. What was a vacant field in late July when the property sale closed is now a building nearing completion. The roof has been installed, siding finished, and the windows are being cut out from the breaks in the siding. Concrete has been poured for the sidewalk around the store. The parking lot has been graded but has not yet been paved.

The fate of the Granville Dollar General is still not certain. In any case, it is doing well in business in Granville. There are almost always vehicles in the parking lot spaces in front of the store, and it also takes in a brisk business from customers without vehicles, such as those from the senior living center across Quaker Street from the store. It is hoped that the Granville Dollar General does not close after the new Middle Granville store opens.


The state Department of Transportation is doing road work on State Route 149 through the village of Granville. Along with the repair work to the road itself, the state plans to improve parts of the sidewalks along Quaker Street and West Main Street on Route 149, particularly where the sidewalks meet the streets. Of particular note are markings on West Main Street at Edwards Market, consistent with those markings at already existing sidewalk crossings, that suggest a crosswalk is planned to be added there. There was a crosswalk in this area before the Main Street bridge was replaced in 2006, and the DOT did not replace it after the bridge work was finished. A crosswalk at Edwards Market has been requested by the village and residents for several years.