A Brief History of our Towns: Clifton Park & Halfmoon

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Anthony’s Spice Mill on Farm-to-Market Road, c. 1890

Anthony Mills, located in Halfmoon, boasted prize-winning baking powder which it supplied to the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, along with other spices and flavorings. Both towns had many mills--sawmills, grist mills, cider mills, woolen mills, and even a plaster mill. Fine molding sand was mined throughout Clifton Park and Halfmoon to supply the cast iron industry.

The Hanover, Country Knolls, in Clifton Park

In the 20th century, Route 9 and the Northway, with their bridges across the Mohawk, took the place of canals and rivers as transportation corridors. As in earlier days these transportation routes led to the further development of the surrounding areas. In the 1960s, Robert Van Patten initiated the first housing developments off the Northway —“bedroom” communities for people working in Albany and other cities. The first “shopping mall” was built at the corner of 146 and Vischer Ferry Road.

School #12 in Clifton Park Village, later site of Shenendehowa  Free Library

In 1969, the Shenendehowa Free Library opened in Halfmoon above the present-day Key Bank on Route 9 and 146. In 1971, the library moved to the Cemetery Road location, previously a church and a school building. By 1980, it relocated to a new 4,600 sq. ft. facility on Clifton Country Road which in 1990 was expanded to nearly 18,000 sq. ft. In 2006 the new building was erected on Moe Road and opened in December of that year.