Averill Park is a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the count ...
within the town of
Sand Lake in
Rensselaer County
Rensselaer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 161,130. Its county seat is Troy. The county is named in honor of the family of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the original Dutch owner of the ...
,
New York, United States. The population was 1,693 at the 2010 census.
The community is named after the local Averill family. It is located on
Route 43, south of Crystal Lake and east of
West Sand Lake.
The
Sand Lake Baptist Church was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 2004.
Demographics
History
Originally known only as part of greater Sand Lake, the community along with neighboring towns grew with the nineteenth-century development of wool and cotton
textile manufacturing
Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...
by local
watermills
A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...
and knitting factories along the
Wynants Kill tributary of the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
.
By the 1880s, several independent local mills produced
hosiery
Hosiery, also referred to as legwear, describes garments worn directly on the feet and legs. The term originated as the collective term for products of which a maker or seller is termed a hosier; and those products are also known generically as ...
, undergarments, and knit shirts.
The hamlet was named Averill in 1880 after a local leading family, then in 1882 renamed Averill Park in promotion of local summer-resort development
and of the Troy & New England Railway, a never-completed trolley and freight line intended to connect the city of
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany ...
with the mills and summer resorts of Averill Park and its “upstate Coney Island” recreational Crystal Lake Beach, and with the mills of the neighboring town of
West Sand Lake.
The local mills declined after the increasing efficiency of steam and electrical power improved competition from regional factories, and were then destroyed by a 1891 river flood. The Faith Knitting Company (later Faith Mills), founded in 1897, restored local industry by buying and re-equipping the old mills and rehiring local labor.
Other late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century firms included Jake Warger’s Dry Goods Store; Gilbert Beebe’s blacksmith shop; Stout’s Hardware; and Park Pharmacy, where
Jerry Lewis worked as a soda jerk in 1942 when his father was a superintendent at Faith Mills.
Mid-nineteenth- to early twentieth-century seasonal hotels included Al’s Place, Hilke’s Averill Park Hotel (previously housing Scram’s Collegiate Institute), Traveler’s Rest (aka Sand Lake House, Tillotson’s Hotel, and Wagner’s Hotel), the Lake View Hotel (aka Blake’s and the Gabler Hotel, later housing the Averill Park Female Seminary), and Clum’s. For mill workers and townspeople, Faith Mills’s Clubhouse was “the entertainment center of the town for many years,”
complete with dance hall, motion picture parlor, cafeteria, bowling alleys, pocket billiard room, and shower room.
Faith Mills’s decline, and with it that of Averill Park, began in the
Great Depression, during which local textile mills did not regain business till 1932.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, manufacture of wool blankets and long woolen underwear for the military earned Faith Mills four rare “excellence in production”
Army-Navy "E" Award
The Army-Navy "E" Award was an honor presented to companies during World War II whose production facilities achieved "Excellence in Production" ("E") of war equipment. The award was also known as the Army-Navy Production Award. The award was cr ...
s.
From 1955 to 1962, Faith Mills, by then one of only three remaining U.S. manufacturers of woolen long underwear “considered obsolete by most persons” as the market shifted to cotton undergarments, was sold to holding companies and downsized to one factory in Averill Park employing as few as 54 workers, finally closing in 1962.
In 1965, the factory was to manufacture a “floor-sweeping compound” and become a warehouse for corrugated shipping containers, employing 15 workers.
2010 demographics
As of the
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...
of 2010, The racial makeup of the CDP was 85.4%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
, 6.5%
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, 4.1%
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, and 4.0% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
or
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
of any race were 7.4% of the population.
There were 571 households in the CDP, out of which 41.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.2% were married couples living together, 12.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.4% were non-families. 20.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.68 and the average family size was 3.09. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 28.8% under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 24.3% from 25 to 44, 29.7% from 45 to 64, and 9.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.9 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $44,000, and the median income for a family was $49,367. Males had a median income of $34,909 versus $26,890 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $26,226. About 8.0% of families and 17.3 of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.4% of those under age 18 and 19.1% of those age 65 or over.
2000 demographics
As of the
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...
of 2000, there were 1,517 people, 597 households, and 420 families residing in the CDP. The
population density
Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...
was 507.2 per square mile (195.9/km
2). There were 628 housing units at an average density of 210.0/sq mi (81.1/km
2). The racial makeup of the CDP was 96.89%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
, 1.26%
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, 1.46%
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, and 1.38% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
or
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
of any race were 2.99% of the population.
Schools
*
Averill Park School District
**
Averill Park High School
**
Miller Hill - Sand Lake Elementary School
* Specialty Schools
** Luis LaBoy Technical School
**
Crenshaw Charter School
** Taborton Alternative School
Climate
This
climatic
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological ...
region is typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. According to the
Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
system, Averill Park has a
humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps.
Climate Summary for Averill Park, New York
/ref>
Sites of interest
Arts Letters & Numbers, on Burden Lake Road, is a nonprofit arts center offering workshops, performances, and residencies, housed in a complex including the former Sand Lake Cotton Factory, which operated as Arnolds, Hunt & Co. until 1875 and was later run by Faith Mills; and also the residence built by mill owner George Arnold.
Hollywood Drive-In Theatre, on New York State Route 66, is a four-hundred-car drive-in theater
A drive-in theater or drive-in cinema is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movi ...
built in 1952.
References
External links
Averill Park & Sand Lake Volunteer Fire Company
- Established 1901
Averill Park Central School District
Sand Lake Historical Society
Averill Park Webcam
{{authority control
Census-designated places in New York (state)
Hamlets in New York (state)
Census-designated places in Rensselaer County, New York
Hamlets in Rensselaer County, New York