A RETRO WORD From Our Sponsors
June 30, 1917. This store was at the corner of Main and South Main streets, across from today’s Community Bank. At street level, the Butts block was originally four
stories tall, but fire reduced it to its present two stories in 1954. Arthur Butts was part of the family that had started the hardware business L.P. Butts, recently closed and demolished on Market Street, near the Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center. The Arthur M. Butts Store sold quite a variety of goods, even automobiles. Fireworks, from my own recollection and of others, were sold commercially In New York state until the mid-1960s. The sale of them ended because of safety and personal injury concerns. New York is one of five states that do not allow any consumer fireworks sales.
Mark Simonson is the Oneonta city historian. These advertisements once appeared in The Daily Star, Oneonta Star or The Oneonta Herald.
June 30, 2011 O-Town Scene 15
— Mark Simonson
