A Hundred Years Ago in Hudson

On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in 1911, this self-promoting statement of civic pride appeared in the Hudson Evening Register.  

ABOUT HUDSON

• Hudson is a good place to live in.
• Hudson is the county seat of Columbia county.
• Hudson is a clean city.
• Hudson's population is growing.
• Hudson is on the Hudson, with the Atlantic at one end and the river and barge canal at the other.
• Hudson's knit goods go to China, England and all over the United States.
• Hudson has one of the biggest cement plants in the world now building on its outskirts.
• Hudson's advantages for manufacturing and excellent shipping facilities are not excelled anywhere.
• Hudson's banks are sound, its manufactories are staple, its citizens are progressive and generous.
• Hudson is on the line of railroads to the north, west, south, and east.
• Hudson is the centre of a rich and fertile farming section.

HUDSON HAS.

• Banks for saving.
• Three National banks.
• Efficient police force.
• Several public squares and parks.
• Hudson, Elks and Masonic clubs.
• Up-to-date fire companies.
• Street railway.
• Good public schools.
• Two daily and two weekly newspapers.
• Railroad connecting with State capital and metropolis; another line connecting with the east; electric road thirty-eight miles in length.
• Telegraph and express companies.
• State Training School for Girls.
• Home for Veteran Volunteer Firemen of the State.
• A well-equipped public hospital.
• An excellent orphan asylum.
• Many miles of macadamized pavement.
• Many fraternal organizations.
• A gravity system of spring water.
• Progressive manufacturing concerns.
• Enterprising stores.
• Two telephone companies.
• Churches representing almost every denomination.
• A handsome county building.
• A free library.
• A Chamber of Commerce.

The "free library" listed--far down on the inventory of Hudson's assets--must have been the library maintained by the DAR at their Chapter House on Warren Street, because the current institution, the Hudson Area Association Library, was not established until 1959.