Times change, but places stay the same.

A Burger King stands on Guilderland’s Western Avenue now where a tollgate once stood.

Would early 19th-Century farmers herding their cows and sheep and pigs to market in Albany ever have anticipated modern cars zipping along the 1799 turnpike — once a rutted pathway, now a paved thoroughfare — cruising in for a burger and fries before speeding away?

Probably not.

Can we envision what will be on that spot a century or two centuries hence? Perhaps not, but we can envision the past and will be spurred to do so when an historic marker is placed near the site come spring.

John Haluska, working with the Guilderland Historical Society, has recently been awarded grants for three new historical markers in Guilderland, all of them along the Route 20 corridor. He received two grants — the markers cost $1,550 each — from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.

Guilderland currently has 42 historical markers, having obtained most of them through the State Education Department before it ended that worthwhile program.

The state started its program in 1926, for the sesquicentennial of the Revolutionary War, and then, after placing over 2,800 markers, ended the program in 1966. Municipalities, individuals, and organizations were then left to maintain the markers. 

Haluska took it upon himself to paint Guilderland’s markers, and now works with the town on their restoration and preservation. He painted the markers the first time in 2015, 2016, and 2017 — he does about 12 markers a year — and is now on his second round, which he started in 2021 and plans to complete this year.

Guilderland got its first marker in 1927 — denoting the 1786 Hamilton Glass House named for Alexander Hamilton at the current site of Guilderland Elementary School —  but in 1932 started getting the state’s blue and gold markers, Haluska said, because of the work of historians Arthur Gregg and William Brinkman.

Those early signs, which acknowledge the State Education Department, are made of cast iron; they hold the paint better, Haluska said, than the more modern aluminum ones. Because the early signs were subsidized by the state, they cost just two dollars each, Haluska said.

Last year, we asked Haluska if there were any holes in Guilderland’s marker history, and he named two. Because Gregg was from Altamont and Brinkman from western Guilderland, there is a dearth of markers in eastern Guilderland, he said. Along Guilderland’s major thoroughfare, Route 20, once known as the Great Western Turnpike, the easternmost marker is at the Rose Hill mansion.

Two of the new markers will help fill that hole. The furthest east will mark the McKownville-Country Club Highlands Historic District, recently designated by the national and state registers of historic places. That marker was made by Sewah Studios.

The second will mark the Early Turnpike near the location of Tollgate #2 on the rough road that ran from Albany to Cherry Valley; chartered as the Great Western Turnpike in 1799, it was designated as U.S. Route 20 in 1926.

The third marker will be placed further west on Route 20 to mark Fullers, a hamlet established in 1875 that included another tollgate as well as a school, a post office, a railroad station, stores, hay presses, and homes. Those last two markers are from the Pomeroy Foundation.

Haluska had also wanted to have a marker for William McKown — “I affectionately call him Billy,” he said — for whom McKownville is named. McKown, Haluska said, owned one of 51 taverns along the turnpike between Albany and Cherry Valley, providing a place for travelers to rest and to water their animals.

The Pomeroy Foundation requires original sources to issue markers and, since McKown lived from 1760 to 1840, materials were scarce. Still, Haluska hopes to raise the funds independently to buy a marker to honor McKown.

The other hole is the lack of women who are commemorated. Haluska notes only one female is mentioned on Guilderland’s markers — for her marriage to William Learned Marcy who became a three-term New York governor. A Jacksonian Democrat, Marcy also served in the United State Senate and as a state Supreme Court justice.

In 1824, Marcy married Cornelia Knower, the daughter of Benjamin Knower at Guilderland’s Knower House. The marker is in front of the house on Route 146.

Haluska notes that he wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor in 2017, asking for female candidates who could be honored with a marker in Guilderland — but got no replies. He’d like to see Lucy Cassidy honored as the main provider for Saint Lucy’s Roman Catholic Church in Altamont and plans to work with the diocese on that.

When the State Education Department first started placing markers during the Great Depression, automobiles were less frequent than today and traveled, like society, at a slower pace. Travelers could easily pull over to read a marker.

Haluska is aware that today’s traffic on six-lane Route 20 doesn’t allow for leisurely sign reading and says the markers will be placed where people can read them. McKownville has sidewalks so the marker there will draw “pedestrian eyes,” he said. The Early Turnpike marker will be placed at Hawthorne Gardens so residents there can read it, coming and going.

The Hawthorne Gardens site itself speaks of changing times as it was undeveloped for so long along busy Route 20 because it used to be the site of a drive-in theater.

The third marker, for the Fullers hamlet, will be placed just off Route 20 on Fuller Station Road. And, if Billy McKown ever gets his marker, Haluska plans to place it in the town’s pocket park at Stuyvesant Plaza.

We commend Haluska and the historical society for their work. We’ve written many times on this page about the importance of history.

Haluska notes that the population of Guilderland has more than doubled since the first markers were placed and many residents are not aware of their town’s history.

We remember Arthur Gregg, then a white-haired old man, coming to Guilderland Elementary School in our childhood to teach us about Guilderland history. We have since read his books, based on columns he wrote for The Enterprise.

Even better than markers are keeping the buildings intact that distinguish our town, our place in the world and its history, from others. The village of Altamont with its Museum in the Streets, shows how buildings have changed their use over time but still remain viable — as a harness shop, for example, became a beauty salon.

One of our favorite letters to the editor over the years — “Why did the barn cross the road?” — was written in 2016 by two New Scotland councilmen who helped save the historic Hilton barn, which was literally rolled across the road to make way for a housing development.

“In our minds,” the councilman wrote, “there are two sides to the debate about how to treat our collective history. In this specific case, one side would allow the Hilton barn to be demolished to make way for construction of a road and 18 new homes.

“A plaque (much like the one marking the old Bender farm just up the road) would doubtless be placed near the barn’s former footprint commemorating its historic significance. Photos would be taken and displayed, and stories told and articles written of the mammoth barn that once stood there.

“The other side would, to the contrary, preserve the past by making the barn a part of the town’s future.”

The Hilton barn is now the centerpiece of a town park adjacent to a popular rail trail and preserve with plans to make it a commercial and community center.

We were sad last month to take a picture of the neglected original 1864 train depot for Altamont after its roof collapsed. But we were gratified when the property’s owner told us he planned to restore that important piece of Altamont’s history.

The Victorian Altamont train station, in front of the original, is a perfect example of adaptive reuse. Although the village board at one time wanted to demolish the 1897 building, a group of citizens bought it with their own funds. Because the building was saved, it was able to be restored and is now once again the center of the community as its library.

Some landmarks — like the Statue of Liberty — are well known and can inspire an entire nation. Others have important statewide significance, although some states do a better job than others of teaching their history. 

A recent survey showed New Yorkers were well below the nationwide average in recognizing their landmarks. Respondents were asked which one in sets of four landmarks were not in their state. Connecticut residents scored at the top, with 80 percent, while New Yorkers scored near the bottom at 17 percent; the national average was 34 percent.

Do you know which of these four landmarks is not in New York State? The Voorlezer’s House, the Irish Hunger Memorial, the Blackwell Lighthouse, or the Central Railroad Terminal.

The Voorlezer’s House, on Staten Island, built in the 17th Century by the Dutch Church, is thought to be the oldest schoolhouse in the United States. The Irish Hunger Memorial is in Manhattan’s Battery Park neighborhood. Also in Manhattan, the gothic stone lighthouse was built on Blackwell (now Roosevelt) Island in the East River. So it’s the 1889 Central Railroad Terminal that doesn’t belong since it is in New Jersey.

Each landmark has something to tell us about our history: the evolution of public education, the famine that sent immigrants to America, and the progress in how mentally ill people have been treated.

Similarly, we can learn about local history by heeding our own markers, even for buildings that are no longer standing. Haluska, a one-time social studies teacher, put it succinctly. The markers, he said, can teach residents “who made what tick.”

Haluska is planning ahead to 2032, the centennial of the State Education Department program, when he hopes to publish a booklet that will guide residents to the local markers in town and instruct them on their history. It will be based on original research by Arthur Gregg amplified by the late village historian Alice Begley in a booklet published by The Enterprise.

The Enterprise has offered to host the guide online, as it does the Helderberg Hilltowns historical website, so residents can quickly and easily check their phones for a glimpse of Guilderland history as they travel about town.

“We’re modern suburbia,” says Haluska, “but we’ve got a strong history.”