- Thank you Michael.

And with me now is local historian, Randy McIntyre.

Randy, welcome to the studio.

It's a pleasure to have you today.

- Thank you - For having me.

- And I think it's pretty safe to say, you know, a thing or two about the city of Watertown.

Am I right?

- Yes.

Over a long period of time.

I got to really know.

- I mean, it's clear you've got a very thick book here, A Walk Through Time: A History of Watertown.

Hundreds of pages of extensive history on this city.

And it made me immediately curious.

Where did your love for history really begin?

- Well, it began first with my, my father.

We used to go to the movies and then walk the public square and go down the tunnel of the Hotel Woodruff and into the Paddock Arcade and whatnot.

So I got interested there and then Alex Duffy gave a number of talks that I was able to hear, be at, and some of his writings.

It really made interesting.

And seventh grade they had the centennial and I was able to do a paper for that.

I didn't, you know, win the contest.

But I got interested in that by researching.

And then the other thing would've been Al Waltz on the radio, talking about the old buildings and what we used to have and various things like that.

So I started collecting postcards and I got over 400 postcards, probably of Watertown and I was able to, thinking about putting them together into a book.

- Those are the postcards right here on this cover, right?

- Yeah, some of them.

Yep.

- You said 400 postcards?

- Yeah, it was, I had 400 postcards, but, and some of them are in the book as well.

There's about 1400 pictures, 500 pages.

- Wow.

And I gotta note, do you have a personal favorite postcard?

It's probably like picking between your children.

It's hard, not, to pick - Just one.

Oh, it's, yeah, it's a tough one.

The Flower Library and probably some of the Thompson Park ones, because I remember the wading pool as a kid and whatnot.

- And those were two places that you were telling me were some of the big things you were, you had a really good time talking about in this book.

I wanna know, what did research for notable locations like that and others in Watertown look like?

I thought it was scarce for a while.

And then with the City Historian's office, I found a lot of information.

And with the Watertown Daily Times archives, fantastic.

Highly recommend anybody interested in researching, that would be a good place.

And then other people will let me into their collection of pictures, the Historical society, the park, the airport, various other places.

- So, when people are going through this book, it's almost textbook, this isn't in schools at all, is it?

- No.

- Are we gonna, are we aiming to get it into schools at all?

- I was hoping, I, I'm not sure what schools actually teach the local history, but it would make a great book because it's, it's broken down by chapter for articles.

The buildings that we have or have lost, fire department, police department, the libraries, park hospitals, theaters.

- It is literally a walk through time when you flip through these pages.

- Yeah.

And one of my pages actually has the, the footsteps showing out from the beginning of the founding of Watertown through all the different things that has happened through the years.

- Now this book is full of fascinating stories.

It's exactly what the title suggests.

It's a walk through time and you know, it all begins with some of the notable names you've mentioned earlier are in this book now.

And I wanna begin with the most notable one that I can think of off the top of my head.

Thompson Park.

What's the story of that park for those who don't know?

- Oh, John Thompson.

He was the president of the Air Break at the time and he bought a large track of land from where the park is now downwards.

And he set aside 190 acres for a park for the city, put a million dollars into it as far as lookouts and walls and wading pool.

I remember the wading pool was a kid, and so forth.

And he put a million dollars in and it gave it to the city anonymously.

And nobody knew about who it was until his death before they realized that it was John Thompson.

And they changed the name from City Park to Thompson Park.

- 'cause he was an anonymous benefactor.

- Yes.

- That's, see that's stuff like that that you can find in this book.

And you know, I think what else was fascinating is, I'd love to know about the history of Arsenal Street, mostly.

'cause that one's really, that was what caught my attention immediately.

- Yeah.

Arsenal Street, it, well down at the Sand Flats to probably Court Street Bridge was all residential.

There was no businesses there really, except for a couple of corner stores and whatnot.

Further up, it developed and county buildings were built and post office was built and whatnot.

And then Urban Renewal came in 68 and tore a lot of our old buildings down that we really, I wish I would still have 'em to tell you, too.

Because the old Armory and old city hall, there was some beautiful buildings.

- Because honestly today it looks like, it looks like a bunch of commercial now.

Yes.

Like it doesn't look like what it looked like in those photos.

No.

And I am especially curious about, you know, this used to be a big millionaires town, like once upon a time, this was a, there were more millionaires per capita in this area.

Yes, it was.

- than aything else - You could tell even by some of the buildings, some of the homes that are just huge.

That is, - Is there any of those that are, those stories that really stand out to you that you'd like to share?

- One would be, of course the Flower, Governor Flower.

The only governor from Watertown.

And they, her, his daughter built the Flower Memorial Library in honor of him and gave money for the books and gave money for outside and the fountains and after it was done.

There was one story where Henry Keep father died and they lost their home and whatnot and they ended up in the poor house.

And he was given to a farmer who was supposed to take care of him and didn't.

So he ran off with a burrow coat and I forgot, a dollar or whatever, I can't remember the exact amount.

And he invested, he worked and took his money, invested it, and he became a millionaire himself.

And that's how the Henry Keep Home was, was found when his wife, when he died, his wife built that in his memory.

- And earlier in this interview, you even mentioned Alex Duffy.

He's referenced in your foreword and he's also, you also named him as Mr.

Watertown.

Tell me a little bit about him.

Yes, Mr.

Watertown, he knew Watertown back of his hand.

He knew the, so-called "Red Light District" 'cause he delivered papers to the madams.

He gave a talk.

I read one article that took you around Public square and told you what used to be there.

And it was just an amazing story.

And he gave talks.

I was president, the General Brown Historical Society and he gave a talk there and, and other places that I just, it was an amazing, the, the knowledge he had.

I wish she would've wrote a book 'cause it was fantastic.

- Yeah.

Like he probably helped, he probably was a big help when it was coming to putting this whole book together.

- Yes.

- And I just, you know, this, it's gotta like, growing up here, you're from this area - Obviously.

- Yes.

So making this book must have been incredibly nostalgic.

- Yes.

Do you, have you brought back a lot of memories of the old buildings, like I said, the Armory and the old City Hall and the old Woolworth building.

- Tell me about the Woolworth building.

- The Woolworth building was a hotel at one time and whatnot.

And what happened there is Woolworth ended up leasing the land because it was owned Henry Cape.

So it was a 99 year lease and he built that store and it had to ended up taking half of the Paddock Arcade as well.

So the Paddock Arcade is a lot smaller than it used to be.

- I was gonna say in those photos that looked, the Paddock looked a lot longer than normal.

- And the Woodruff Hotel, they even had a hard time tearing it down.

It was built so well, the, the wrecking ball hit the wall, bounced off and did some damage to the Empsall building.

That's how strong it was built.

- Yeah, it is crazy to see the photos in there and see how much Watertown has changed over time.

I think the biggest thing I'm wondering is what really inspired you to make this history book?

- I think it was my postcards.

I, I really thought that people should see that.

And as I put it together, I said, well I gotta get more description for these buildings and I gotta do this.

And by the time I got done, I got, I said I got 500 page, a little over 500 pages and say I can't cut any of it out to reduce it.

I said I gotta go with it.

So I went with the 500 pages and I said 1400 pictures.

And there it's just, I'm so pleased with it.

- It almost sounds like if you weren't careful it would've turned to a thousand page book.

- Oh, it could have easily probably.

It does take you from the founding through today.

The only thing I haven't really covered a lot of is the government itself.

And can I ask why that is?

- I had to stop someplace.

Pretty much it.

Yeah.

- It was too much at a certain point.

'cause you do, you do cover a lot of ground from the hospitals, the schools, the media outlets.

I saw little shout out to WPBS or well, not really a shout out.

You mentioned WPBS.

- Yeah, - I just was blown away by the amount of research that went into a book.

- Four years.

- Four years it took.

And you've sold over 750 copies of that.

That's gotta be - So far.

- feel rewarding.

Yes.

It's very reward, rewarding.

- So I guess, I guess when you think about it, and you're probably not thinking about what's next, but what is next after a book like this?

- I don't know.

I've got a deal, but it's more of a personal type story than actual history.

I also worked on some on the history of Brownville at one time and I've got some written about that.

So I'm not sure if I, so it just depends.

It's just, I just enjoy history.

- It's really, it's really, you wanna see where things take you.

- Yeah.

- Now something else we touched on a little bit earlier in this interview was, you know, we mentioned the airport and it's just fascinating to see that strip of land that was once nothing and now is like what it looks like today.

It's gotta be cool to see photos like that.

But also Watertown was originally an industrial town.

Correct?

- It became an industrial town.

A a big, big industrial town.

The sewing machines, worldwide distribution.

You got the air car, air freshener, which is worldwide, Stephens engineering worldwide.

The air brake was worldwide.

There was a Babcock.

He started off with windmills and, and wooden wood piping.

And he went to carriages in, in as many as a thousand a year of carriages and wagons.

And then he went to automobiles and built automobiles and then he built body parts for automobiles.

He also did all the ambulances for World War II and he built stretchers for the World War II as well.

So it was a combination of all kinds of various products.

Wow.

Coming in and going out.

- So, and there's another one I think of, 'cause you mentioned, we mentioned Paper Mills, the Knowlton's, another one that looks like it changed in the photos.

Knowlton's another one was paper mill.

The first, a lot of the paper mills were textile industry first, and then they became paper.

And then there was places that actually built paper making machines for the paper mills and things like that.

- And there's one name that immediately popped to mind before, before we run outta time.

The name Massey came up a lot in there.

- Massey, he was one of the founders of, of Brownville.

Matter of fact he's buried at the Arsonal Street Cemetery near, near the sidewalk.

And he Massey Street's named after him.

Matter of fact, he had a little Massey Square at one time off of Massey Street.

- And now one of his long descendants is here, one of the big Massey names, Sean Massey.

So, I'm starting to get the wrap up signal, but I gotta ask you real quick, for people who are curious about water town's history, where can they go to find this book?

- This book is located at amazon.

Amazon.com and it's been selling pretty good.

- And for people who want to, who wanna start looking into Watertown history, where would be like the perfect place you would recommend them to start?

- Probably the Watertown Daily Times Archives.

The archives, it's full.

There's like, there's stuff I couldn't, I had but couldn't use.

I had probably four or five boxes of research material that I copied and, and was using.

Wow.

So yeah, there's a lot - Well, Randy, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.

It was a pleasure having you in here.

And we look forward to hearing more about the history of Watertown from you.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.