"Always Alplaus"

This brief history is a synopsis of the booklet "Alplaus - A Brief History" published in 1976 by the Alplaus Bicentenial Committee.

One of the earliest settlers in the area was Jonathan Stevens around 1693; during the next 200 years the area developed into a small farming community. A small one room school house was built in 1815 and was used until 1907 when a larger school house was constructed. The larger school house was used to educate the children of the area until 1954, but the building is still in use today as apartments.

The railroad corridor was established in 1832 and still operates today. Postal service began in Alplaus in 1888, in 1922 the Alplaus Post Office was established and the 12008 zipcode was created at which time the area known as Aal Plaats was officially named the hamlet of Alplaus, N.Y. In 1902 an electronic trolley line was built from Schenectady to Saratoga which ran right through Alplaus along the current site of Bruce Drive. In the early 20th century Lansing DeForest took ownership of much of the property that is now the hamlet of Alplaus.

Mr. DeForest sub-divided the property and thanks to the trolley line was able to develop the area into the small bedroom community it still is today. Jacob Boyce opened a grocery store in 1910 at 311 Alplaus Avenue, the building that until recently was our post office. In about 1917 a second grocery store was added to the community by a Mr. Leo in the building that is now the location of Samuel's Cafe. In 1912 a tuberculosis hospital was built on Glenridge Road, the hospital is now called Conifer Park a drug and alcohol rehabilitation Center.

Around that time the Reverend G.H.C. Bain became pastor of a handful of local residents which formed the Alplaus Union Methodist Episcopal Church. The Alplaus Methodist Church was chartered in 1913 and is celebrating its centenial this year!

In 1929 a gasoline station was added to the community to fuel the new automobiles everyone was driving. Shortly thereafter a volunteer fire department was established in 1930 and the firehouse was erected in 1931. The original building is still a part of our community as is the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Company. In 1934 a county home for the aged was built on Hetcheltown Road north of Alplaus, the Glendale Nursing Facility is still in operation and a new facility is under construction at the same site. The population of Alplaus has remained roughly the same since the mid 20th century at about 475 souls and today, as has been true throughout its history, it is the people of Alplaus that make it such a wonderful place.

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