To the Editor:
The Wright Town Board met recently to discuss the potential for a Dollar General to come to Wright.  Someone muttered, “It’s ugly.”

Of course Big Box is ugly! It  doesn’t belong in an agricultural bedroom community like Wright. Why is the town entertaining the idea of a corporate monstrosity in the first place? This is a town with more cows than people.

Shutters Corners is an historic hamlet with two prominent houses that are listed on the National Register of Historic places. The Becker Stone House is on Drebitko Road on the site of the “Gas Up,” an antique engine and car show sponsored by the Hudson Mohawk Chapter of the Pioneer Gas Engine Association. This popular two-weekend annual event draws thousands to our community.

The Becker-Westfall House is a brick house that lies at the corner of Route 443 and Cook Road.

A mile further up Route 443, there’s the historic Evangelical Lutheran Church. A parishioner researched its history and listed it on the National Register. And there’s the Gallupville House, originally built as an inn and tavern, that serves today as a community center.

In 1998, Habitat for Humanity of Schoharie County built a Habitat home with a partner family on Drebitko Road. The house was built from scratch by volunteers with donations of materials and labor. The land was provided by local resident Joe Mix.

The town has conducted surveys and more surveys, and updated comprehensive plans. I doubt anyone ever reads them or carries them forward from one administration to the next. On those surveys, did the people of Wright ever ask for chain stores to be built here?

By development, perhaps people were thinking of the good old days of the 1990s, when a number of grassroots enterprises sprung up. Like Bittersweet Organics, a  Community Supported Agriculture project that was the dream of Jon and Dobie Mix. People could work the farm to pay for their share of organic vegetables. When you picked up your produce at the farm, Jon presented you with a bouquet of flowers. He sponsored barn dances and his zydeco band, the Rubber Band, played long into the night.

Karl Westphal, with his little Guernsey cow, realized his dream when he operated the Rundycup Dairy at his home, hiring locals to churn organic yogurt fresh from the farm. You could taste the love in the yogurt!

The Olde Corner Store at Factory Street and 443 thrived for years before being shuttered.

From the time it was chartered in 1975, the Town of Wright/Schoharie Valley Lions Club dreamed of building a park in Gallupville. From 1976 to 1985, the Lions constructed a park, and tennis and basketball courts. They added a pavilion in 1992, picnic tables and barbecue grills, and sponsored an Eagle Scout to construct a portable bathroom. Groups signed up to use the park for their events, people enjoyed the park until Tropical Storm Irene devastated the area.

There are many creative ways to grow and revitalize our community. Invest in its rich history, support our local farmers, refurbish the Gallupville town park, volunteer to renovate Gallupville House. Be an active participant in the town’s destiny.

Thirty years ago, when no other town would let them in, the Iroquois Gas Transmission System built a pipeline compressor transfer station off Route 146 in Wright. The town sold out for a mere $29,000 and a few perks.

Learn from our history. Don’t let the invaders in!

Rosemary Christoff Dolan

Shutters Corners

Town of Wright