50th Anniversary of the Great Mack’s Inn Power Failure

I was helping Richard Bishop, a life-long Island Park resident install some pine railings when he asked if I had heard about the July 4^th that the lights went out in Mack’s Inn. Richard was 13 years old and spent the summer with his good friend, Ralph Foyrer. Ralph and his older brother Arvet stayed with their parents in the family cabin on Cabin Lane at Mack’s Inn. Short on playmates, Arvet tagged along with his younger brother and Richard.

Underneath the Foyrer cabin was a large crawl space that could be accessed from a 4 foot tall exterior door. Arvet claimed the space as his workshop. One early summer day, Richard and Ralph became annoyed with Arvet’s constant company. They questioned why he was not spending more time in his “workshop”. Arvet responded that the area was haunted! Giving the situation some careful consideration, Richard produced a handful of screw-in glass fuses. These little gems were the answer to all of the ghostly problems.  He instructed Arvet to throw one of the fuses at the ghost and it would vanish from the crawl space for the entire day. Arvet joyfully accepted the fuses and left to confront his tormentors. Throughout the month of June the boys did not see much of Arvet, who was busy in his workshop.

As July 4^th approached, cabins throughout Mack’s Inn were being opened for visitors. Richard and Ralph heard tale of a widespread loss of power throughout the area. Fearing the worst, they rushed to Arvet’s unoccupied “workshop”. Crawling into the back recess of dirt crawl space, they found hundreds of fuses! Richard said that they glistened in the beam of his flashlight like mounds of pirate treasure. Fearing that they would be blamed for the outage due of the advice they had given Arvet, Richard and Ralph gathered up several shopping bags of fuses from beneath the cabin. In their best stealth mode, they worked their way throughout the area and replaced the fuses undetected.

Several years and children later, Richard related this story to his family. They listened with skepticism and accused him of spinning a yarn. One afternoon seven years ago, Richard’s son Lowell was called on to replace the bathroom floor in the Foyrer Cabin that had since changed hands. As he excavated the soil in the crawl space under the bathroom, he uncovered a pile of rusty screw-in fuses. He immediately realized that an apology was due his dad.

Growing up in Island Park was simple but never dull. Thank you, Richard for sharing your stories with me. It was my privilege to listen to them.