The History of the Depot Restaurant in Cold Spring, NY

George Washington drank from the village's namesake spring.


Cornelius Vanderbilt's Railroad

Born to poor parents in Long Island, New York, in 1794, Cornelius Vanderbilt built a transportation empire that made him one of America's railroad barons and left him the country's wealthiest man at the time of his death. It is estimated that he died with a fortune that would equate to $26 billion dollars today. Vanderbilt began with a small ferry service, which he turned into a successful steamship business by the mid 1800s. In 1860, he turned his attention to railroad travel and purchased the Long Island, New York, Harlem and Hudson River Railroads in quick succession. The Hudson River line added the Cold Spring depot in 1893, serving both passengers and freight companies, and remained a train depot until 1954.
The Restaurant

After spending 18 years as a car dealership, the Cold Spring Depot Restaurant opened in 1972 and has been a restaurant ever since. The interior features a cozy setting with a roaring fireplace and bookcases lining the walls. The menu offers standard American fare with an emphasis on steaks and burgers. The restaurant also serves a wine list that offers domestic and imported wines, and serves a selection of frozen drinks and beers on tap. The restaurant contains a plaque commemorating George Washington's trip to the cold spring.
The Ghost

According to legend, on Wednesday nights, the main dining room has one extra guest, who did not make a reservation. In 1898, a local woman learned that her husband planned to kill her. The unfortunate lady rushed to the train depot to catch the 10:15 train to Poughkeepsie, but was apprehended by her husband, who stabbed her on a bench in the waiting room two minutes before the train's arrival. Today, the former waiting room serves as the restaurant's main dining room and locals claim that at 10:13 on Wednesday nights, a cold draft wafts through the section of the room where she was killed.
History of Cold Spring

Founded in 1730 by Thomas Davenport, Cold Spring originally served as a trading post on the Hudson River. In 1818, the West Point Foundry opened and began producing weaponry for the United States Army. In 1846, the village was officially incorporated and the Civil War years brought great growth to the area as the West Point Foundry produced munitions for the Union Army. After the war, the area became a favorite retreat of some of America's wealthiest families, who built elaborate mansions in the region, including the estates of the Butterfield and Morris families on Morris Avenue. The foundry closed in 1911, but by 1973, the village was declared a Federal Historic District and tourism has been the main industry ever since.
 

This Day in History

 Nov 28, 1994:
Jeffrey Dahmer murdered in prison



Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, serving 15 consecutive life sentences for the brutal murders of 15 men, is beaten to death by a fellow inmate while performing cleaning duty in a bathroom at the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin.

During a 13-year period, Dahmer, who lived primarily in the Midwest, murdered at least 17 men. Most of these men were young, gay African Americans who Dahmer lured back to his home, promising to pay them money to pose nude for photographs. Dahmer would then drug and strangle them to death, generally mutilating, and occasionally cannibalizing, their bodies. Dahmer was finally arrested on July 22, 1991, and entered a plea of guilty but insane in 15 of the 17 murders he confessed to committing. In February 1992, the jury found him sane in each murder, and he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences.

Two years later, Dahmer was killed at the age of 34 by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who also fatally beat the third man on their work detail, inmate Jesse Anderson. Scarver's motive in killing the two men is not entirely clear; however, in his subsequent criminal trial he maintained that God told him to kill Dahmer and the other inmate. Scarver, already serving a life term for murder, was sentenced to additional life terms and transferred to a federal prison.

This Day in History

 Nov 27, 1965:
Gordie Howe scores his 600th goal

On November 27, 1965, Detroit Red Wing Gordie Howe scores his 600th goal in a game against the Montreal Canadiens. He was the first (and the last, until Wayne Gretzky) NHL player to score 600 times in his career. He’d broken the previous record--544 goals, set by the legendary Canadien Maurice "Rocket" Richard--in November 1963. That game’s referee told reporters that "Gordie Howe can do more things better than anyone else. That’s just all there is to it."

November 27 was a lucky day for Howe: On that day in 1960, in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, he’d become the first NHL player to earn 1,000 points. (He’d broken Richard’s 946-point record earlier that year.) Exactly five years later, he scored his 600th goal: a gentle flip shot past Canadiens keeper Gump Worsley at the Montreal Forum. Even with Howe’s goal, the home team had the game well in hand--they eventually won 3-2--so the fans could afford to be generous about Howe’s accomplishment. They cheered politely and sent newspapers, programs and other scraps of paper fluttering into the air and onto the ice.

In Howe’s 32-year career, he played 2,421 games, scored 1,071 goals (including goals he scored in the post-season and with teams that belonged to the World Hockey Association instead of the NHL) and racked up 2,589 points. (He also earned 2,418 penalty minutes in his career, a tribute to his legendary aggression. His teammates called him "Mr. Elbows"; Sports Illustrated said he was "calculatingly and primitively savage…a punishing artist with a hockey stick, slashing, spearing, tripping and high-sticking his way to a comparative degree of solitude on the ice.") Until Gretzky came along, Howe held the NHL records for goals--810 in the regular season--and points--1,850. He was the league MVP six times.

Gordie Howe retired in 1971, after his 25th season with the Red Wings, but he couldn’t stay off the ice for long: He soon joined the WHA team in Houston, where he played alongside his sons Mark and Marty. In 1977 all three Howes moved to Hartford to play for the Whalers. That team joined the NHL two years later, so Howe was able to add a few goals, points and penalty minutes to his official records before he retired for good at age 52.

This Day in History

 Nov 26, 1933:
Vigilantes in California lynch two suspected murderers



Thousands of peoples in San Jose, California, storm the jail where Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes are being held as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the 22-year-old son of a local storeowner. The mob of angry citizens proceeded to lynch the accused men and then pose them for pictures.

On November 9, Brooke Hart was abducted by men in his own Studebaker. His family received a $40,000 ransom demand and, soon after, Hart's wallet was found on a tanker ship in a nearby bay. The investigative trail led to Holmes and Thurmond, who implicated each other in separate confessions. Both acknowledged, though, that Hart had been pistol-whipped and then thrown off the San Mateo Bridge.

After Hart's body washed ashore on November 25, a vigilante mob began to form. Newspapers reported the possibility of a lynching and local radio stations broadcast the plan. Not only did Governor James Rolph reject the National Guard's offer to send assistance, he reportedly said he would pardon those involved in the lynching.

On November 26, the angry mob converged at the jail and beat the guards, using a battering ram to break into the cells. Thurmond and Holmes were dragged out and hanged from large trees in a nearby park.

The public seemed to welcome the gruesome act of vigilante violence. After the incident, pieces of the lynching ropes were sold to the public. Though the San Jose News declined to publish pictures of the lynching, it condoned the act in an editorial. Seventeen-year-old Anthony Cataldi bragged that he had been the leader of the mob but he was not held accountable for his participation. At Stanford University, a professor asked his students to stand and applaud the lynching. Perhaps most disturbing, Governor Rolph publicly praised the mob. "The best lesson ever given the country," said Governor Rolph. "I would like to parole all kidnappers in San Quentin to the fine, patriotic citizens of San Jose."

This Day in History

 Nov 25, 1980:
Sugar Ray takes his title back



On November 25, 1980, Sugar Ray Leonard regains boxing's welterweight title when his opponent, reigning champ Roberto Duran, waves his arms and walks away from the fight in the eighth round. "No más, no más," Duran told the referee. "No more box." He'd had cramps in his stomach since the fifth, he said, and they'd gotten so bad he could barely stand up.



It was the first time a champion had given up his title voluntarily since Sonny Liston's shoulder injury forced him to quit a fight with Muhammed Ali, then Cassius Clay, in 1964. And it didn't seem like something Duran would do: He was a notoriously fierce, brutal fighter, celebrated in his native Panama for his unwillingness to show his opponents any mercy. Before the fight with Leonard, Duran had only lost one of his 73 professional bouts, to Esteban DeJesus eight years before, and he'd taken the welterweight title from Leonard in June in the fairly one-sided "Brawl in Montreal." In that match, Duran had kept a bewildered Leonard pinned against the ropes for almost the entire fight, punching him relentlessly. But Sugar Ray had been training ever since, and he was favored to win the rematch.



His training paid off: Leonard stayed on his toes and away from the edges of the ring, and by the eighth round Duran was flagging and Leonard was winning on each judge's scorecard. Two minutes and forty-four seconds into that round, after a particularly punishing series of blows, Duran had had enough. He walked away, signaled the ref and sat down in this corner. Many people though that he quit because he was tired of putting up with Leonard's clowning and taunting; some thought he'd taken a dive; and some said he simply wanted to collect his purse and go home. But Duran maintained that he was sick. After the match, his doctor reported that the fighter had eaten too much too quickly after the weigh-in, and all the food had given him a stomachache. This news didn't do much to help his image, as Leonard pointed out. "He didn't take the easy way out," Duran's adversary said. "He took the worst way out."



Right after the bout ended, the 29-year-old Duran announced that he was retiring from boxing. "I've gotten tired of the sport," he said. But in December 1989, he came back for a rematch—"Uno Más," promoters called it. Leonard won that fight, a lethargic bout all around, in 12 rounds.

This Day in History

 Nov 24, 1963:
Jack Ruby kills Lee Harvey Oswald



At 12:20 p.m., in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

On November 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy's murder had caused him to suffer "psychomotor epilepsy" and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found him guilty of the "murder with malice" of Oswald and sentenced him to die.

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee's findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

This Day in History

Nov 23, 1984:

BC wins on Hail Mary


On November 23, 1984, Boston College’s diminutive quarterback Doug Flutie throws a last-second 64-yard pass to beat the University of Miami 47-45. The 30,235 fans in the Orange Bowl had already begun to celebrate the victory they were sure their Hurricanes had won, and they were stunned when Flutie’s pass found his teammate (and roommate) Gerard Phelan in the end zone. The receiver, for his part, was just as stunned: "He threw it a long, long way," Phelan said after the game. "I didn’t think he could throw the ball that far."

It was a spectacular ending to a spectacular game. In all, Miami moved the ball 655 yards and had 32 first downs.; BC countered with 627 yards and 30 first downs. Together, the Hurricanes and the Eagles ran 150 plays; on average, each play gained almost nine yards. And in the last 20 minutes of the game, the teams traded the lead back and forth six times.

With 28 seconds to go in the game, Miami’s Melvin Bratton plowed one yard through BC’s defensive line to score a crucial touchdown that gave the Hurricanes a four-point lead. The Eagles set up on their own 20-yard line and made it to the Miami 48 in 22 seconds. There was time for one more play. In the huddle, Flutie called for the "55 Flood Tip"--a play the Eagles practiced every Thursday but had rarely used. It went like this: Phelan would head for the end zone, flanked by two wide receivers; Flutie would hurl the ball in their direction; and Phelan, having drawn all the defense away from his teammates, would jump up and tip the ball to one receiver or the other.

Of course, that’s not quite how it went. Phelan bolted down the field, while Flutie drew back to the 37. The clock ran out. Flutie threw the ball as hard as he could. After the game, he said: "I just let it fly toward the pile--not necessarily toward Gerard Phelan, but where I thought everybody was going to be. I saw the ball go down over two defenders’ heads and I thought it fell incomplete into the end zone." Phelan, meanwhile, was alone in the end zone. Miami’s defensive backs were so sure that Flutie couldn’t throw the ball all the way down the field that they didn’t pay any attention to the receiver behind them. They should have: Flutie’s pass sailed over their heads and hit Phelan squarely in the chest. His feet didn’t even leave the ground.

The pass won the game for the Eagles, who went on to finish 10-2 and be ranked fourth in the country. It also made Flutie the first player in college football history to pass for more than 10,000 yards in his career. He won the Heisman Trophy eight days after his so-called "Miracle in Miami." Since NFL scouts thought he was too short (he was 5’9") to play in their league, Flutie headed north and became one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the Canadian Football League. Eventually he came back to the NFL, playing for the Buffalo Bills and the San Diego Chargers before he returned to Boston to finish his career with the Patriots. He retired in 2005.