To the Editor:

This Sunday, Oct. 10, the Village of Altamont Archives and Museum will host a Founders Day Celebration. There will be an exhibit about Altamont’s original trustees on display in the hallway gallery of the Altamont Archives and Museum.

In addition, this past September was the 95th anniversary of automobile racing at the Altamont fairgrounds. To commemorate this occasion, we decided to put together an exhibit around some of the more important moments in local automobile racing.

Local racing enthusiast Paul Malecki and I scoured the Village Archives and Museum and the Altamont Fair Auto Museum in search of artifacts that focused on the peak years of “big car” racing at Altamont.

About a month into the project, I discovered a note in one of the indexes at the archives that read “fair racing posters.” From there, I located two giant tabloid-size posters from the Altamont Fair advertising local dirt track auto races. These posters, whose original sizes are 41-by-84 inches, are beautiful multi-color silk screen prints that were used to advertise various local events.

We photographed the original prints and had them reproduced. The reproductions will be on display at the Altamont Free Library beginning this Sunday, Oct. 10, as part of this weekend’s Founders Day Celebration.

The Altamont Free Library will also be recording oral history interviews of some of our longest-memoried citizens. You can sign up for a one-hour recording session by contacting the staff at the Altamont Free Library.

We hope you will join us this coming Sunday, Octo. 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Orsini Park to take the Museum in the Streets self-guided tour or at Village Archives and Museum at 115 Main Street in Altamont.

Visitors will even have a chance to identify unknown photos of Altamont by taking the Photo Challenge. We hope to see you there!

Dan Barker

Village archivist

Altamont