The ghosts of Fort Drum: Visiting the small communities wiped out by eminent domain
“We looked at some of the remains of seven small communities in eastern Jefferson County that were wiped out — pulled down, burned, carted away — in the buildup to World War II in 1941, in what’s called the largest use of eminent domain in New York state history.
Hamlets destroyed included LeRaysville, Sterlingville, Wood’s Mills, Lewisburg, Alpina and North Wilna. Today they’re pretty much buried under parts of four Jefferson County towns, across some 25.4 square miles with a population of nearly 13,000, one of the largest, and best-equipped, military bases in the United States.
Fort Drum today is a busy place. The base trains some 80,000 troops a year. The Army spent $10 million in 1941 to build a “city” of 240 barracks north of Watertown.
Our guide was Laurie Rush, a Ph.D. archaeologist, who is cultural resources coordinator for Fort Drum. We followed her red pickup truck along a dusty network of tank trails next to Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield to find two of the so-called “lost villages.””
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Case, Dick. Syracuse.com 26 August 2012.