Local city information for Plattsburgh, NY

Plattsburgh is a city in and county seat of Clinton County, New York, United States. The population was 18,816 at the 2000 census.

The City of Plattsburgh is located entirely within the original boundaries of the Town of Plattsburgh and is in the North Country region of the northeastern part of the state.

Plattsburgh was founded by Zephaniah Platt in 1785 after he was granted the land by George Clinton. As early as Samuel de Champlain's 1609 expedition into the Lake Champlain valley , this region began to fall under the influence of the French - and later under American and English colonial power. Early French contact and the proximity of Plattsburgh to Quebec, make this a historically French region. Situated within and intimately intertwined with the extended fur trade network positioned in the Montreal hinterland (and beyond), this area fell within the lands of the coureur des bois affiliated with the larger trading hub in Montreal. While Plattsburgh is cited by American historians as being a relatively new city, the area became occupied somewhere after the arrival of Samuel de Champlain in 1609 and the beginning of the Fur Trade in Montreal in the mid to late 17th century. While permanent French settlement was hampered by the looming threat of armed conflict with Iroquois natives of the region, French missionaries did begin to settle alongside local indigenous populations where Native villages were found, as early as 1609.. Moreover, the area near Plattsburgh is notable for being the site of an indigenous village. By a large stretch of the imagination, the area now known as Plattsburgh may predate (or at least be comparable in age to) some of the oldest American settlements in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Hampton, Virginia and Albany, New York. One key distinction to make is that of the nature of these settlements, however. Whereby the former were distinguished by formal organization, city incorporation, and a relatively urban landscape within the 17th century; any informal trading outpost or missionary settlement near present day Plattsburgh would have been a remote and impermanent offshoot from the larger French monoculture.

In granting land to Zephaniah Platt of Poughkeepsie, New York - who went on to establish the new city of Plattsburgh to buffer emerging American interests in the Saint Lawrence River valley and Lake Champlain valley after the American victory in the American Revolutionary War - the centralized American authority proclaimed the area including and surrounding the old French trading areas and Iroquois settlement to be refounded as the settlement of Plattsburgh in 1785. Regardless, local residents exercised their unique French culture and history over the years in ways that are still visible today. In Plattsburgh, for example, there is no "Main Street" - a common vestige of English colonies, whereas in a unique tradition major streets and thoroughfares were named after the daughters of prominent businessman and politicians (e.g., Cathérine, Marguerite - present day Margaret Street and Plattsburgh's "Main Street", Cornélie - present day Cornelia Street). In a similar fashion, local residents named local streets after renowned Frenchmen including Samuel de Champlain, the original founder of the region, and General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm - the French general who gained fame defeating incredible numerical odds in multiple battles throughout both the Oswego and Hudson River Valley areas before going on to organize the last French defense of Québec at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The oldest monument within the city limits, in fact, is dedicated to Samuel de Champlain.

The community set itself off from the Town of Plattsburgh by incorporating as a village in 1815. The city government was established in the former village in 1902.

With its significant location on a major water thoroughfare and close to the U.S.-Canadian border, Plattsburgh has been the site of a number of historic events including the Revolutionary War's Battle of Valcour Island and the War of 1812's Battle of Plattsburgh; the city has a War of 1812 museum.

Plattsburgh Normal School was founded in 1889. It burned in 1929, and was rebuilt in 1932. In 1948 it became State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

During the Cold War, military functions took a prominent role in Plattsburgh, which was home to Plattsburgh Air Force Base (PAFB) and was the location of the Strategic Air Command's primary wing on the U.S. East Coast due to its geographic desirability. The base's location in the Champlain Valley (protected by the rain shadow of the Adirondack Mountains) ensured consistent, year-round weather that was safe for take-offs and landings. The 380th Bombardment, Aerospace, and Refueling Wings, all stationed at PAFB, included B-52 Bombers, air-refueling "tankers" and FB-111s. The base had a great deal of land surface and was one of only four military bases in the United States with a landing strip large enough for a Space Shuttle landing.

Despite its numerous awards for performance excellence, PAFB was closed on September 29, 1995 in a round of national base closures in the early 1990s as the Air Force began to pare down its post-Cold War missions. The base property is now managed by the Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corporation (PARC) and is used by a number of industrial manufacturers and commercial airlines.

Because of the strategic weather advantage of the former PAFB site, as well as its relatively convenient access by air to the most remote parts of Upstate New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton used the former airbase landing strip on her trips to campaign in the North Country region during her first term as a US Senator from New York in early 2002.

Throughout much of the 1980s, when the Canadian dollar was strong relative to the U.S. dollar, Plattsburgh was a favorite tourist location for vacationers from Montreal and southern Quebec. Bilingual signs, in English and French, are found in parts of the city. The city beaches and camp grounds were regularly crowded and Plattsburgh attracted enough retail stores and outlets to build a second large indoor shopping mall, Champlain Centre North, in addition to several outdoor shopping centers. The additional retail space of the Champlain Centre North along with the new Consumer Square (Walmart, Staples, TJ Maxx...) made the Pyramid Mall irrelevant; it was largely demolished (with exception of Kmart and the restored old Price Chopper building) and converted into a power centre with a Lowes Home Center and a new Price Chopper as the anchor stores. However, with the closing of PAFB and the strengthening U.S. dollar in the 1990s, Canadian tourism declined, although it has rebounded with the falling dollar of 2007. Today, the city relies largely in part on new industries expanding on the former airbase as well as established manufacturing plants, one being Bombardier and the other the Georgia-Pacific paper plant. The GP plant is housed in the former LOZIER Auto factory built at the turn of the century on the former (lakefront) Anderson Farm.

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