The article was in the campus paper, not the local one.  Dave re-sent me the photos; I'm posting them and this wild information in the hope that someone out there has the article or any other photos (or even film!) of this incredible oddity.  Only at Champlain!

(1947 photos from George Mapes courtesy of D. Smith - all rights reserved; cropped but without losing any background features)

One presumes that's young George.

Ooh, look; there's a prototype for the Chrysler PT Cruiser just beyond the Rocket Car!

Unless there's a door on the left, I don't even see a convenient means of ingress and egress and those had BETTER be reaction motors, not jets, because, if jets, the vacuum would collapse the vehicle as it killed the jets in the cold of a Plattsburg(h) winter with the windows shut tightly (that presumes there was a heater).

Strat tells me there was a CC wrestler named Neal who had a car without doors.  Now, my question is:

Strat advises it's the former; no doors in the openings.  Heck, we had a car with no doors OR openings - in fact, no body at all, at RPI in '53-'55! George Jones advised 26 Jun 03 that the wrestler was Neal Rutt (d.).

Oh, wild!  One Joshua House e-mailed me on 26 Jul 03 to advise (slightly edited - emphases and links mine) that "the rocket car still exists!  It is owned by the Empire^@ State Museum in Albany, and is to be displayed at the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, New York, from September 12th thru November 9th" {Finger Lakes region}; "the Curtiss museum has a good deal of information on the very colorful Hungerford brothers".  These guys got arrested for something that happened between them and the Elmira PD when they were rousted out of their family house for not paying property taxes; they were long-time, card-carrying communists, despite having founded a fairly successful company which still exists in the Elmira area".  A link to the Curtiss Museum says they "were aviation pioneers/inventors from Elmira".

@ - 17 Mar 04 - According to Geoffrey Stein, Senior Historian, New York State Museum (to whom I am indebted for corrections made above), the "vehicle was donated to the State Museum in 1992 by Daniel Dwyer of Albany", and it had (and has) a door on the left side.  "The Hungerford brothers started with a 1921 Chevrolet 490 chassis"; the "orginal four-cylinder engine and drive train survive".  Mr. Stein sagely suggests that "Mapes rarely, if ever, fired the rocket motor"; I am inclined to agree, but we shall see.

He wrote that although he "was in Plattsburg (no h) less than a year it looms large in my memories now.  It was a grand experience overall.  The Texas red hots were unforgettable so I enjoyed seeing the shack on your site.  There was also a spaghetti joint a ways down into town.  I remember how the roads had hardened snow on them all winter, and squeaked when you walked on them in that cold air.  Also the picture of the town in 1956, grand.  With my grandkids, I went back for a brief visit in the early '90s and visited the 'campus'.  The guard at the gate let us take some pictures on the parade grounds and look around."

"My problem that day was finding the 'college' once we reached town. I couldn't get my bearings.  I never did find the old railroad tracks.  We used to travel to Plattsburg on the train from NYC.  The night we first arrived in Plattsburgh us city boys debarked into a snow depth we never experienced before, about two feet.  In later trips we took the overnight and arrived in Plattsburg in the morning.  But at that hour Plattsburg was not an official stop, only a place for the engine to take on water.  Actually, the water tower was sort of on the outskirts of town and the Champlain College students all piled off, at least the ones who didn't sleep through the water stop.  For some reason the conductor always made a big fuss about us getting off.  We had to jump from the floor height once we got the doors opened, if we got them open before he arrived.  He would shout and rave and tell us to stay on until Rouses Point, the next official stop twenty miles farther on.  I never could figure out why he put so much effort into that.  I think once I slept past the stop and my friend and I had to hitchhike our way back down to the school."

Thanks, Ned!  The tracks are still there, just west of Route 9 and below grade downtown, but below the bluff along the lakeshore at the campus and southward.

Amazing, the fondness most of us still have for that place!

Next to check in was Larry Litman (23 May 03 - from Far Rockaway, Long Island - attended '51-'52 - reminiscences only most minimally edited); he "lived in Saratoga C106 in a three-man very crowded, very messy, very popular room known as 'The Haven' with a sign for the Rouse's Point ferry hanging the wall.  Dean Horvath eventually called us on the carpet because of our rowdy behavior."

"Also in Sara C were some who stayed on for the 52-53 year: Mitch Cohen, my roommate and a childhood friend from Far Rockaway; Joe Genovese, and Donald Westlake, who later became a well known writer (two of his books became movies:  'The Hot Rock', starring Robert Redford, and 'Bank Shot', starring George C. Scott."

Larry has some questions regarding the pictures: re the pics of single students dorms: the upper he believes to be "Cumberland (note the curve of the oval) just on your left as you entered the main gate."  The lower is Clinton, he thinks.  "The cafeteria (28) was in the basement of Clinton.  The pics of the bonfire could not have been taken in December, which was cold, cold, cold, with snow on the ground from November to April.  The people are too lightly dressed, especially the girl {sic!}on the ladder."

"The student union was in the front, with the snack bar in the back.  If you enter 'Plattsburgh Barracks'² on Googol, there is a whole page of photos and postcards about the campus when it was an army post (including one of Teddy Roosevelt on the Quad)." {this latter and another will apear here momentarily - SB,III}

He and Mitch visited the campus in the late 90's; we may see more pix, yet.

Larry sent another message; "The student union was the second building on the left of the main gate, right next to Rt. 9.  In the photo looking across the oval past the soccer{?} goal the view is NW.  The infirmary was only on the first floor of Beaumont.  Floors 2 and 3 were girls dorms.  Male students on the northern end of Saratoga D could look into their rooms.  There was at least one classroom on the 1st floor of Beaumont.  I have a class assignment card from Spring 1951 with the name of the course and its location.  I had English at 8am T,Th, and Sat. (ugh) in Beaumont with a wonderful teacher named Jerry Kovalcik, who was also the college (and my) debating coach."

"ACUNY WAS SUNY by 1948¹.  I have a letter written to my family on CC stationary with the SUNY shield and the date 1948.  An aerial photo (Mapquest) shows the rectangular outline where Ticonderoga stood.  Apparently it was the dorm that burned down.  Behind it is the rounded outlines where Kilroy's Castle stood.  Do you remember the Lido Club, or as it was called, the Libido Club, where we would go to meet and dance with local girls?  It was there I developed a lifelong hatred of country music.  Rouses Point has no apostrophe and no ferry.  It has a bridge which we took to UVM."

"If anyone is interested, many libraries have a copy of Dean Gilbert's book.  Here in Boston, Boston U. and UMass Boston have and others also.  I might have somewhere the small Champlain Guide which was given to incoming students."

And even more: " - - - we had a college advisor {at Far Rockaway High} who seemed to have a fondness for CC, or else she wanted to send us to Siberia.  Actually, I don't remember it being unbearably cold.  Was the cafeteria in your basement? {I don't remember; I ate across route 9 - SB,III}  If so, you were in Clinton (which was the only large dorm without porches.)  I have two editions of the 'Champlainer', the newspaper, both falling apart and fragile.  It was fun to dig them out and reread them. Bus fare to NYC was $6.80!"

Rich is fond of both Bach and the Bard; "both interests were stimulated at CC.  Dr. Kovalcik, the debate coach, introduced me to Shakespeare, and also how to hit the bars the night before a debate tourney; and some of the songs we sang in the chorus were by Bach."

¹ - Correction:  "Champlain became SUNY in 1950, not 1948.  The last was the date on the stationery's shield/logo.  CC was the first liberal arts college in SUNY and Gov. Dewey made a speech on that occasion in our gym (was there a bowling alley in its basement?)"  {O.K., folks; was there?}

² - The Barracks postcards are at this URL but you might also want to see cards of old Plattsburgh itself.

On 22 Jul 03 I received this (excerpted): "My mother, Marie Timmerman, attended Champlain for at least one year, 1947-1948, and possibly longer.  She passed away quite a few years ago, and although she didn't often speak of her 'college years', I could always tell that she felt they were an important point in her life.  I'm not quite sure if she ever ever finished, or got a degree."  Can anyone fill in the details?

Marie's daughter sent some preliminary digital photos; hopefully she'll get better at this or even be able to scan the documents (especially the map!).  Here are lovely Marie, herself, the cover of "The Student Handbook 1947-1948", the Campus Map from the centerfold of that handbook, the "Fall Festival 1947" dance card, a dance card for "November Fifteenth / Nineteen Hundred Forty-seven / Music by Gene Krupa" {!}, an invitation to the Second Annual Winter Week End, February 20, 21, 22 (1948), and a group picture at Winter Week End with Marie in the center and her sister, Kathryn, to her left:

(photos courtesy of M. Timmerman's daughter - all rights reserved;
cropped but without losing any background features)

An alum wants to know if anyone has heard from/about Jessica Dennerstein, who was at CC from '48 through '50 and stayed with Janna Coulapides and others in Hudson Hall; we do not have her on our list of alumnae.

John Cassavetes (1929-1989), noted actor, director, and author, attended Mohawk College in 1948 (its last year) and then went to Champlain in 1949.  Noted Cassavetes scholar Ray Carney of Boston University has a major Website on the subject at http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/cassavetes/.

Cassavetes mentioned professors lecturing over loudspeakers to 200 students at a time.  He hated that!  However, he liked one teacher, a history teacher named Williams who made him like history because he (Williams) was so passionate about it and made it so interesting.

A researcher is looking into Cassavetes' days in Utica and Plattsburgh and would appreciate hearing from anyone who remembers Cassavetes at either school (let me know, please).

Howie Ross, on the '52 wrestling team, got in touch in June 2006 and reminded me that Lario's was the Greek soda fountain and confectioners downtown (at the corner of Margaret and Bridge Streets, as I had already noted on the preceding page - ah, memory!).  What a long chat we had on 14 Jun 06!!   (16 Jun 06)