It's Always Something

At the end of 2022, Hudson is struggling with the challenge of improving its sidewalks. At the end of the year 150 years ago, the city faced a different challenge: how to provide the city with an adequate supply of water. The following article appeared in the Hudson Daily Star for December 31, 1872.

We know that the water supply problem was eventually solved, because in 1883 the city installed the Venus fountain in the Public Square--fountains typically being a municipality's way of bragging about its water supply. When the fountain was installed, the Hudson Evening Register described it as "exhibiting in the most effective manner the power of our water supply."

Photo: Columbia County Historical Society

As we move into the new year, Gossips will follow not only the progress of the proposed sidewalk law in Hudson but also the 19th-century solution to the water issues in the city.