Looking up State Street (the business center of Carthage) toward the National Exchange Bank (currently known as the Buckley Building).  There are a few automobiles, but mostly horse drawn vehicles still travel the dirt streets.  The globed lighting shown here were gaslights, probably lit at dusk by Fred Klingner, the village lamplighter.  Electric lights were first turned on in 1887.  Carthage was one of the first towns to have electric street lights in this part of the New York State. Carthage, NY. Circa 1880s.  From the Bob Blunden Collection in the Town of Champion Archives.

Caption info compiled by Lynn Thornton, Laura Prievo, and Harold Sanderson for the Images of America book Around Carthage and West Carthage.