The three businesses mentioned underneath the “urban renewal” photograph on the April 1, 1971 edition of the Times, signify three landmark family businesses in early Livingston Manor. First, the mercantile business of Sprague, Randall & Company, led by Howard Sprague, was originally located across from the Methodist Church. However, in 1885, as the business section of the village was being developed near the O&W railroad yard, Sprague erected a building and moved his business to a location next to the railroad station. There, the store continued operating and remained associated with the Sprague family, along with other financial backers, until 1948 when Fried Brothers, hardware dealers from Parksville, purchased the store.

Frederick William Hartig was one of the members of Howard Sprague’s company. The Hartig family, came to the area in 1860, where the brothers William and Henry conducted farms on the hillside slopes overlooking the village. On both farms were located rock outcrops that when quarried, yielded valuable flag, curbing and stepping stones. Harvesting the quarry stone, William’s son, F W Hartig, managed a stone dock behind the Sprague company store next to the railroad yard. This business expanded, adding a warehouse for lumber and eventually a building used for coal storage. With the death of F W in 1937, the coal building use was eventually turned into storage until it was sold to Louis DuBois in 1945.

The family surname DuBois is probably the most familiar name associated with the heritage of Livingston Manor. Beginning in 1873, no other business concern within the village, outside of the railroad operations, would surpass the impact for the growth of the Manor than the mercantile businesses associated with Alvin Preston DuBois. His son, Louis, after the death of his father in 1907, continued on with the DuBois landmark mercantile businesses until 1925, retaining and expanding the fuel business. With the purchase of the Hartig coal yard in 1945, DuBois enlarged and modernized the coal storage building and obtained new equipment, including a modern coal elevator. Eventually, DuBois’ fuel business would handle besides coal, fuel oil and bottled gas.