Historic Preservation Committee
Oral History -- Carl Schnoor, Part 2
Interview with Carl Schnoor for the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, June 20, 1995. Mr. Schnoor had two interviews, one by an unnamed interviewer, and the other by John Hokenson. This is the second one conducted by John Hokenson. The first is also on the Web site. Below, John Hokenson is indicated as "JH".
| JH: | -being conducted on behalf of the Mountain Lakes Historic Preservation Committee. My name, the interviewer, is John Hokenson. Tonight I'm going to be interviewing Mr. Carl Schnoor, who was [tape turned off/on] |
| CS: | -a lot more interest lately and two, the mayor can serve at least a two-year term and a four-year term. And you can do some planning. The way it is now they seem to change every-well, once a year, twice a year-not twice a year-two-year terms at most from what I've seen in the papers. I want to go back to something you asked me about-why they argued. One part was the democratic-Democrats wanted an issue at the time. You know, Mountain Lakes has been Republican all-for years and years and years, and the Democrats decided they wanted to push for office and that was one of the issues they had. They felt that the form of-the change in government would be beneficial to the town, that we would have a strong administrator who could make decisions on his own and just be guided by the policy of the council. And I don't see that was very different from what we had. We had an administrator but he was guided by the council. He was on his own to do the bookkeeping or whatever else had to be done. He was-took care of the problems that people would bring up, complaints or whatever, and he ran the office and so on. And we looked at ourselves as a policy-making body even before the change in government. So I really don't see the change. Now, Duke Smith might tell you something else. I don't know but from where I sat I didn't see a real change. We had one administrator on the one form of government and we had an administrator on another form of government. And I didn't see where the change was [unclear]. The council maintains now-it's a policy-making body and the administrator takes care of everything else. When you're on the council you still have to know what's going on. You just can't let the administrator just run the whole thing without reporting back and that sort of thing and perhaps saying something once in a while when you didn't like what he did. So I really don't see the change and I think it's unfortunate that the people don't elect the mayor. And maybe we could have that part inserted instead of the way it is now; that might be an improvement. But I don't see where the improvement is but I think [chuckles] by and large it's pretty much the same, except for the changes in building. I don't know enough about it because I wasn't involved with it when the form of government changed. |
| JH: | Okay. When you were mayor, what-you brought some innovation into the borough government. Could you-including things like committees-could you-since you're still on the [unclear], could you give me- |
| CW: | You mean, you're talking about the committees? |
| JH: | Right. |
| CW: | Well, what I did when I was on the council before I became mayor I studied every operation we had, the [unclear] planning board and financial part of it and that sort of thing. I developed rules and regulations, if you will, for each particular function that we had. And I had put them in writing and they were passed at the council meetings. And I did that principally to leave a trail for somebody who would follow in office, that these are the responsibilities involved with the planning board, the Board of Health and so on. And when I got to be mayor I decided to set up a number of committees, and one was financial. Borough appearance, I remember, was one. I've forgotten the names of them. I don't remember; there must have been about a half a dozen or so. It's probably in the record there somewhere but I've forgotten the names of the committees. And then we set up a-oh, I remember one very important one at the time was the Sewer Committee. And that was-turned into quite a big job and the odd thing was that the first report of the Sewer Committee was that we didn't need sewers in town. And I remember the president of the Board of Health didn't want sewers. And then when the committee went around again and some months later they changed their minds, decided we did need sewers and the president of the Board of Health brought down a petition. I remember that very distinctly. He dumped a bunch of paper-petitions on my desk saying, "These people are against sewers." Well, we voted for sewers and then Polly-who was the mayor [unclear]? Walter-it's probably- |
| JH: | Well, we can get that all right. |
| CW: | Ya. At any rate, he did a tremendous amount of work. He was the head of the-he had a council member on each committee-Walter Lily, that's who it was. He used-he chaired the Sewer Committee and he did a tremendous job. And it must have carried right on through when he was mayor and so on, and we had a lot of help from the people in town. I remember Ruth Harrison was quite active in that [unclear] among others. But by that time I was out of it on the actual work on sewers, financing and all the rest of it. What really turned it around for the Sewer Committee when they came back a second time and said they wanted [unclear] on sewers was the fact that there were two grants, one from the state and one from the government. And it was a matter of-it meant that we had to take advantage of those grants then. If we had let a certain amount of time go by we would not have gotten the grants. So we got in in the nick of time really to get those grants, which cut the cost down considerably. I don't remember what we paid for those sewers as far as the town was concerned but it was quite low. [unclear]. Well, we got [several words unclear]. So it was just circumstance that things worked out, I guess. We got the money we needed. That would have been quite a load on the town if we had to finance the whole sewer system. |
| JH: | Were you also involved in the drilling of one of the wells? |
| CW: | Yes. Ya, the one out on Route 46 and that was a fiasco [several words unclear]. I remember the estimate we got was something like $96,000 and we decided to go ahead with it. And they drilled down about 330 feet, as I remember. [several words unclear] glacier country. They put the pipes down, right down through all the cobblestones. There were a lot of cobblestones and unfortunately they didn't shore up the pipes. And the cobblestones kept going in and finally they crushed the pipe and they had to do it all over again. But we got down-we finally got back again and it was a financial problem. You know, who's going to pay for what? They finally got through it again and got down 330 feet or so, and we had [unclear] of water we thought at that time. No matter how big Mountain Lakes would get, we had enough water for the rest of time. I heard recently there's a problem over there with the seepage from the cleaning the [unclear]. [several words unclear] or not, I don't know, but I heard there was a problem. |
| JH: | Ya, it's being monitored now, I guess. |
| CW: | Oh. But I thought it was unfortunate because, you know, [several words unclear]. It worked. The people who were engineers on-worked from a map that was dated about 1890, plus or minus. It was [unclear]. They knew where the underground river was coming all the way down from Sussex County, I think it was. And [unclear] they followed that [unclear] and I guess they were [unclear] well [unclear] over time that they could follow it all the way down to the [unclear], only [several words unclear]. See, they still have the wells on [several words unclear]. |
| JH: | Now, one of the things you were involved with also was the borough hall that we now have out on the boulevard. |
| CW: | Ya. |
| JH: | You were-that was when you were-that was built when you were the mayor, is that right? |
| CW: | Uh-huh, it was stimulating at that time. It wasn't long after I got to be mayor we decided we needed a new borough hall. The one we had, you know where the bus stop is at [unclear]? The boulevard? Right there, that's where it was. And there was termites [several words unclear] for the off season as well as for meetings. And we made a study. Pete Haas and I worked on it. And it turned that it could almost pay for itself by selling certain properties and they were going to sell that property there at the bus stop to [several words unclear]. Later on they decided to make it a park [several words unclear]. There were some other angles to it. The cost to the town was kind of low. [several words unclear] probably [several words unclear] well supported at low cost. And we were [unclear] it's still the same as it was when we built it. I remember we had a dedication and we [several words unclear]. [sentence unclear]. |
| JH: | Right. That's right. Did you-now, was that funded with bonds or do you think it was- |
| CW: | No, it was not funded with bonds. |
| JH: | [several words unclear] |
| CW: | No, we managed to scrape up a lot of monies one way or another but [several words unclear]. [unclear] something in it about selling-oh, we sold the borough garage out on Route 46. That's where we got some of the funding. We didn't have to go to the [unclear] at all. |
| JH: | So that was-I guess that was completed in 1970, the new borough hall. Were there any other projects that when you were mayor that you were involved in? |
| CW: | No, no major ones that I can think of. |
| JH: | One of the things that you did when you were mayor was you had an annual report [unclear] as sort of a distinctive thing. And I don't think it's being done now but maybe you could tell us what was involved with that. |
| CW: | Well, I think it went back of my experience on the school board when the people said we did not communicate. When I got to be president of the school board I was going to communicate. The only way you do it was through these committees I had and the reports that came out all the time. When I got on the council [unclear] I'm really not sure that we communicate. And would you believe it? [unclear] people still said we didn't communicate. But one way of getting at that was to put these annual reports out. They were mailed to everyone in the borough and tell them everything that went on during the year. I thought that was one way of communicating. Another way I had of communicating was to go to the borough hall every Monday night whether there was a meeting there or not. I'd go and it was open to the-let it be known that anybody could come down and discuss any matter at all. Sometimes I'd sit there and nothing would happen at all. Once in a while people would come down [unclear]. The most difficult one I had I guess was the one where there was a group in town who wanted to make sure that the town was open to all races, creeds, whatever. And they had a big petition asking us to [unclear] for them to pass it at the council meeting. Well, they came down to the meeting with this petition and there were a lot of people in the old borough hall, and [several words unclear]. And I can remember one [several words unclear], "Well, it's redundant. You don't have to do that." I said, "It is redundant. You say that [several words unclear]." But I saw nothing wrong with approving the declaration [several words unclear]. Well, we were-[unclear] got into all the newspapers. In fact, CBS came out with a TV camera. It was on TV and [unclear] happened to be in the office at the time. They questioned him. He was the borough administrator at the time. And oh, I think the papers supported what we did. But I got letters from all over the country-not very many-saying [unclear] kind of nasty [several words unclear] like, you know, "I'll send you some money if you want take a lot more people." You know, that sort of thing. [unclear] nasty. [several words unclear]. I thought we did the right thing and I think most people in town felt we did the right thing. But there were some die-hards who didn't like [unclear]. [sentence unclear]. |
| JH: | Well, there's nothing like being the mayor to get all sorts of [unclear]. |
| CW: | Oh, we had a good relationship here [unclear]. Al [unclear] was mayor of Boonton at the time and I had a good relationship with him. The Morristown group-oh, I guess one of the major things-this happened before I was mayor-the Morris County [unclear] wanted to take over the [unclear] for a reservoir. And I remember Tommy Trenhold, who was the owner of the Mountain Lakes [unclear] time, he had a couple lots up there. And he sold the lots to the town. He took a stand that we weren't interested in selling to him. One night the year before I was mayor-[unclear] Allens was mayor-two representatives of the Morristown [several words unclear] Morris County-Morris County [unclear] came to a meeting and laid out their plans for the [unclear] and said they wanted to buy it-buy out part of it. And [unclear] got up on his high horse and threw them out of the meeting-personally threw them out of the meeting, said, "We're not listening to you. Just get out. We're not the least bit interested." And of course they did. And then it still was on the back burner. They still wanted that property. During my term it kind of petered out and dropped out of the [unclear]. We did some things there. We had excellent advice from Al Roberts. Do you remember Al Roberts? |
| JH: | Ya. |
| CW: | And there was a lawyer who had-at one time he'd been a judge. But he helped us on the side. Nobody knew it at the time. He didn't charge us anything but we'd go to him if we had a sticky problem, even though we had our own objective. We looked at it from the viewpoint of the town. In fact, the town attorney at the time recommended that we sell that property. [several words unclear] about to sell it. |
| JH: | Is that over by Briar- |
| CW: | The [unclear]? |
| JH: | Our-Mountain Lakes property- |
| CW: | Back of Birchwood, ya. |
| JH: | Back of- |
| CW: | That's what I was leading up to. |
| JH: | Ya. |
| CW: | Al Roberts-at the time, we weren't sure whether we'd have to sell it or not or [unclear] condemn it [unclear] they wanted it for a reservoir. And Al Roberts said, "Well, zone some of the property as residential, which would make it so much more expensive." Well, they [several words unclear]. We had [several words unclear]. I know the later councils changed the zoning back to parkland. There was a lot of maneuvering for awhile. |
| JH: | Now, did they want it for a park? |
| CW: | No, for a reservoir. |
| JH: | For a reservoir. |
| CW: | Well, they were going to have a park around it too. |
| JH: | Oh, I see. |
| CW: | [several words unclear] the main reason was for a reservoir. |
| JH: | And they were going to-were they going to dam up- |
| CW: | And they had a dam in back of Birchwood. |
| JH: | Oh, okay. |
| CW: | That whole area. |
| JH: | Boy, that would have made-really made a big change in [unclear]. It would have been a park and it would have been a park that-for other-[unclear] from other towns too, I guess besides Mountain Lakes? |
| CW: | Ya. Boonton Township was even [unclear]. I think so. I'm not sure. At any rate, [several words unclear]. |
| JH: | Are there any other attempt or any other examples of sort of preserving some of the parks in town or some of the woods, things like that, which [unclear]? |
| CW: | Well, I haven't done [several words unclear]. [end of side 1, tape 1] |
| CW: | The land up that way became available [several words unclear] offered to sell it and the town bought it. [several words unclear] Otherwise, there would have been houses up there [several words unclear]. Anyway, the town owns a high percentage of the property. [several words unclear]. |
| JH: | It has been a policy all along to maintain a high percentage of property that's owned by the town. |
| CW: | Yes. Well, there's [several words unclear]. We had a lot of pieces of property in town, probably still a lot. But this is such a-no one can build on. Then there's property up on the [unclear]. [sentence unclear]. And we decided to sell all these lots that were not buildable lots to adjoining owners. [sentence unclear]. And our theory was we pick up available properties and also to have property that was [unclear] keep the leaves out and the branches and debris, whatever. Some of the pieces were dumping grounds, [unclear] grass clippings and whatever. And we did manage to sell a few and then, after I left the council and [unclear] got in, they wanted to hang onto all the property. And they changed the policy and they didn't sell any of those [several words unclear]. That I could never understood because none of it could be built onto. [unclear] available and also [several words unclear]. That's over the dam. They just stopped the practice. |
| JH: | And how about-at the time were there any particular issues regarding the lakes when you were mayor? |
| CW: | Well, we had a Lakes Committee that was concerned about the lakes as far as [unclear]. In fact, I'll tell you a little story. I moved into town like in '50 [several words unclear], '51. And I was invited to a fishing club meeting by one of my neighbors. And I went and I found out he and I were the only adults there. [chuckles] He was elected president and I was elected vice president inside of about six months. And I found out what my job was-go out in a rowboat on a Saturday and dump [unclear] into the lakes [unclear]. That worked for a long time but I think they've changed the chemicals they dump in the lakes [unclear]. There's always a-well, it's still a problem in the lake. The silt is building up. |
| JH: | Mm-hmm. I was just-ya. Now, it's becoming a real issue. |
| CW: | We thought it would be in the long run. At the time we [unclear] go along with it. I never [unclear]. At one point, the town used to have fireworks the Fourth of July and the town would pay about a thousand dollars [several words unclear]. And somewhere along the line the council [several words unclear] decided they weren't going to spend taxpayer's money on fireworks. And the whole thing dropped-no more fireworks on the Fourth of July. Then he lost and I got on the council [several words unclear]. We decided it'd be nice to have fireworks again and [unclear] on a voluntary basis-[unclear] tax money. We got people around the lake to collect money. We got kids in the high school to go around and we had fireworks again. A small item but I think it's nice. They still have it to this day. |
| JH: | The same-[unclear] work for- |
| CW: | [sentence unclear]. [unclear] used to give us the flares. [several words unclear] get about 25 to 30 flares [several words unclear] have a ring of flares all the way around the lake. Now, I don't know what they do. |
| JH: | Well, they've got- |
| CW: | [unclear] out of business. |
| JH: | They've got fireworks but it's all-your system is still in effect today. I mean, they still do collections [unclear]. One thing you mentioned was that there was a [unclear] of Democrats got into office. And maybe you could tell me a little bit-I think it was maybe what, two or three Democrats- |
| CW: | Joe Gibson and Duke Smith got on. That was after my time though. |
| JH: | Oh, okay. |
| CW: | We were all Republicans. Mike [unclear] as well as [several words unclear]. I guess his first term as mayor there weren't any Democrats on it. I know in his second term they were on. Joe Gibson was one and [several words unclear] was on it. I'm not sure. I'm not-I can't remember who- |
| JH: | Well, we'll get to- |
| CW: | -was elected. Joe Gibson and Duke Smith and there may have been a woman that got on either that year or the following year. |
| JH: | Right. |
| CW: | And, oh, I remember going to a League of Women Voters meeting of the Democrats, and they made a lot of statements that were-well, they were trying to raise issues and [unclear] we were spending too much money on curb replacements and things like that. And I must say Joe Gibson, who was one who argued against spending so much money-I think it was 16,000 a year on curb replacement. Well, Frank-what's the name of the park up there where the-Frank [several words unclear]-and he convinced Joe Gibson that if we didn't fix those curbs we'd have water and ice getting underneath the walls and [several words unclear]. Well, I have to give him a lot of credit. Joe Gibson got up and said he was wrong and the curbs had to be fixed. [chuckles] You don't hear that very often. But, you know, gee whiz, they were Mountain Lakers first, I think, and Democrats second. But they just wanted to get on because they were Democrats. I think Duke Smith changed from Republican to Democrat. As Bill [unclear] said, it just took a little longer to get things done [chuckles] when the Democrats got on. And then he said it wasn't all bad. |
| JH: | Are there any others-anything else about Mountain Lakes community [unclear] think of as, you know, being something that's unique, historic, significance to the town? |
| CW: | I guess-no, I think what's distinctive is the town itself, the fact that we have so much open space. I think it's a great place to bring up kids. I think we have a great school system and we've always had a great school system. And the kids, if they want to participate, can participate in this town. I still think of Mountain Lakes as home. In fact, I don't know whether you know about the community church-is planning to have a memorial garden right alongside the church building there. And they're planning for something starting in the fall, if possible, depending on financing. And of course people will-those who want to will have the ashes deposited in that memorial garden out in-I had my wife's ashes put in there. And it's mainly because we just love Mountain Lakes and we still consider it as home. We brought up our kids here. I couldn't think of a better place to put her ashes. And, you know, we have the lakes that are just beautiful and all the activities. There are so many activities and the-all the athletic activities in the school system [several words unclear] soccer [unclear]. [unclear] they are champions now, aren't they, [unclear]? |
| JH: | There's always- |
| CW: | It's just a great town. |
| JH: | There's always been a tradition of having an interest in sports. |
| CW: | That's [several words unclear] doesn't want any part. |
| JH: | Were there a lot of houses built at the time you lived here or was it sort of- |
| CW: | No. |
| JH: | -a stable- |
| CW: | It's fairly stable. One section that opened up is over at the-one of the lakes now. You know where Peacocks live? You know the Peacocks? In that area, that was opened up. That's one major section that opened up. I can't remember what lake that's at. And then there was a big piece of property down on 46, and there was a fellow named Sherman who owned it. And he tried for years and years and years to get the town to rezone it for housing of one sort or another. There were delegations [unclear] town hall, or the planning board, rather, fighting that request and they prevailed for the longest time. I know there's some houses down there now and I don't know what changed it. And there was another thing that happened. There was a piece of property down there on 46 owned by the YMCA. And Dick Wilcox, I think, when he was not mayor any longer, but he was-headed up the building committee for the YMCA. And he wanted to build down there and the council decided that we didn't want a YMCA down on Route 46. So we offered them property up on [unclear]. You know where it is now. We offered enough property to build what they wanted and we sold them the property to them at the assessed valuation. I wish we had sold more at this point [several words unclear]. I think they have 3,000 members or something like that. And it's great that we have-well, one thing, we didn't want it on 46. We didn't want the kids going down to 46 and creating more traffic too. And-but, while the YMCA resisted that, they finally capitulated and decided to take our offer. And I think it was all to the good and now it's right near 75-not 75-287. |
| JH: | So that was another major building that you were involved with. |
| CW: | Indirectly. I had nothing to do with the building itself. [unclear] in the site-the site was the only part I had anything to do with. And of course the council felt very strongly about it too-just didn't want it down on 46. And of course it would have broken up that whole commercial section as well, made it a more valuable piece and more property and industrial looking to attract industry down there now. We did. |
| JH: | When-was there any industry that came in there when you were there or was that later on? |
| CW: | It was later on, I think, for the most part. It was not long after I was there as mayor. No, that was after my time. And then those houses down there, I know that's only been in the last 10 years. |
| JH: | Anything that-any really particularly, you know, funny or strange thing that you recall that you want to record for history? |
| CW: | [chuckles] Well, offhand, probably had a few jokes. |
| JH: | There were-you did bring in a lot of good ideas into the-running on the schools and the borough council [several words unclear] contribution. |
| CW: | Well, I tried my best to. And a lot of it went back in my experience with that first referendum on the attachment to Briarcliff School. And the big message I got was communicate, communicate, communicate. And in spite of all the communication you think you're going through and doing everything you can to keep people enlightened, people still didn't read and would complain that you didn't communicate. And as I said earlier, the annual report was one way I thought I could make sure everybody got the information they needed. |
| JH: | Let's see. Now, just for the record, when did you first move to Mountain Lakes? |
| CW: | January, 1951 we moved in. I was building the whole year of 1950. It took them a year to build. That was when Korea-the Korean War broke out. There was a problem getting supplies. One thing or another-just dragged on and on and I couldn't move in until the first week in January, '51. |
| JH: | That was on [unclear]- |
| CW: | That was on Morris Avenue, our first one-337 Morris Avenue. And it was a-I knew there was a lot on Lake Drive and people told me it was not for sale. I would say like the end of '51 or early '52 I said to my wife, "Let's go find out who owns it and we'll ask him." [several words unclear] real estate, saleswoman at the time, said, "It's not for sale." Well, I-"Let's go to the horse's mouth," so I went to a fellow in Glen Ridge. And I went there Saturday; I was going out to Long Island and was coming back on Sunday. And he said, "Come back Sunday and I'll give you my answer." And he sold me that lot, you see. He had had it. He inherited it from his father and he and his wife decided they weren't going to build-getting along in years and decided to stay in Glen Ridge. So there was 150 on the lake and 200 feet deep. They sold it to me for $7,500. [chuckles] Just plain lucky in life beside [unclear]. I got involved very early in the school board. I don't know why. I guess somebody asked me. I guess Herm Nowak asked me. I guess he was on the Nominating Committee. He moved out many years ago. I said, "Sure, I'll run." And at that time (maybe they still do) they had two candidates for each spot. I think I got on because my wife was well known in the community. She was involved with the [unclear] in church and then she'd go to Junior Women's Association and got to know a lot of people. That's the only reason [unclear]. [chuckles] They didn't really know me. And then I got involved and things went on from there. |
| JH: | Okay. Well, anything else you want to add to the- |
| CW: | I'll probably think of something on the plane tomorrow going back. |
| JH: | You're going-you're living in Florida now so- |
| CW: | Ya. Sarasota area. |
| JH: | [unclear]? |
| CW: | I don't know. Some things came up talking with you I hadn't even thought about anymore. |
| JH: | Okay, well- |
| CW: | Well, I know we had-well, it goes back to when I was first-first year, second year my son was in the Lake Drive School. And Dorothy Hughes lived here; Joe Norton lived here. Remember Joe Norton? He died just recently. And he lived over in Boonton Township but lived down here on [unclear] Road for a good many years. And about four or five of us got together and had basketball games-the kids were [unclear]-well, I would say in grade school-every Saturday morning. And that was indicative of the way the town was. The people-I worked with them and not only basketball and baseball [unclear]. So there was a lot of participation on a lot of the parents. Of course, Little League came along [unclear]-well, it was when they were-when my son was about 10, you know-10 to 12 he was in Little League. And that was a good thing that happened because there was, I mean, some hard feelings between the town of Boonton and Mountain Lakes. In high school we'd come out of a basketball game in the Mountain Lakes gym, and we didn't have a riot but it wasn't very friendly. And these kids got into the Boonton, Mountain Lakes Little League and they were all mixed in on the teams, and what a difference that made. They got to know one another. And every once in awhile I could pick somebody out of the gym [unclear] that time. You know, not a riot but it almost could have led to one. |
| JH: | Ya. |
End of Interview
Transcribed by Tapescribe, University of Connecticut at Storrs, 2003, edited by Margarethe P. Laurenzi, coordinator, Oral History Project of the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, October 2003, with assistance from Jackie Burkett, Borough Archivist.