BY PAUL MITCHELL
North Country This Week

CANTON - There’s a new addition to the front lawn of the Canton Municipal Building.

On Wednesday, Aug. 25, a ceremony was held to officially install Canton’s first historic William G. Pomeroy Foundation maker with local officials in attendance.

The distinct blue and yellow marker reads: “Town Hall Built on this site 1878-1879. Second floor opera house. Hosted plays, graduations, civic and political events. Destroyed by fire 1962.”

“I am very excited and I will be applying for another marker this year for the Pyrites Paper Mill,” said Canton Historian Linda Casserly.

The Pomeroy Foundation’s core initiative is to help people celebrate their community’s history. The Foundation strongly believes that historic markers play an important role in local preservation by serving a dual purpose.

They educate the public and fister historis tourism which in turn can provide much needed economic benefits to the town and village where the markers are placed.

The program also fills a gap, as New York State stopped funding their roadside markers in 1939.

Markers are 18x32 inches cast aluminum with a 7-foot aluminum pole. The title line allows 15 characters and the five body lines can have 27 characters each, including spaces and punctuation.