The late Froni Crane (1915–2012) of Housatonic was an amateur photographer and member of the former Great Barrington Camera Club. She took the above photograph of the Monument Mills water tower and powerhouse smokestack in Housatonic about 50 years ago. The iconic water tower was erected in 1952.
“It was 20 degrees below zero the day I took that photograph,” she once told me.
Froni graduated as valedictorian from Hudson (New York) High School in the class of 1934. During the Great Depression, she worked for the National Youth Administration, which was a branch of the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). She was a member of the Glendale Ladies Auxiliary Fire Department and the Claverack (New York) Players.
Last week, I set out to see if I could find the spot from which Froni took the above photograph. I found the location at an empty lot on Hart Street. The present-day photograph shown immediately below reveals that the neighborhood trees have grown quite a bit in five decades, and the smokestack is gone.
An additional “Then & Now” of the water tower and smoke stack is also featured below.
