c.1860
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This non-contributing, c.1860 commercial building has received substantial modification in the form of a 2-story commercial addition on the east and north facades. The original building is a 2-story rectangular-shaped, side-gabled structure with clapboard siding, boxed cornices and metal roof. The addition, which obscures a clear reading of the original building’s historic and architectural association, has 111 sash on the second story and multi-pane windows on the first story.
Ernest G. Rist, youngest son of Jonathan Rist and Samantha Reynolds, born in 1886, worked as a yarn spooler, then weaver, in the Warrensburg Woolen Mill. By the time he was 22, he and his future wife, Maude Austin, had completed training at the Albany Business College. They were married in 1910 and in 1913 Ernest opened Rist Boot Shop at a location previously occupied by A. H. Sherman, who sold wallpaper and bicycles in the Pasko Block, located just south of the bandstand. In 1919 he opened a branch of his shoe repair shop in the annex of Harry Levine’s store downstreet. The Pasko Block became known as the Rist Block after Rist purchased the building from Emerald Pasko in 1922. Three stores occupied the building: Rist’s shoe store, the jewelry and watch repair shop of F. J. Mahoney of Glens Falls, and Jack Lynn’s coffee room and restaurant. In 1948, at the age of 62, and after 35 years in the business, Rist retired and sold his shoe business to Arthur and Vera Brown. Ernest G. Rist died in the spring of 1960, and in 1963 his widow, second wife Frances, sold the Rist Block to Arthur Brown and Delbert Pasco.