Up until 1924, the refuse and garbage generated by town residents was disposed of at the grove between Deckertown and the covered bridge, along the Willowemoc, on property owned by Stanley Sprague. The location was first provided by the Manor’s businessmen’s association and later taken over by the town, the first town maintained dumpsite. However, the gated access to these dumping grounds, off of the state highway, had become so unsightly and offensive, as some residents only managed to dump their garbage at the entrance gate instead at the dumping grounds As a result, the town closed the dumpsite.

Truck men then were hired to haul local refuse to a site provided by the town off the Little Ireland Road. This site also became a nuisance, especially to the residents of Deckertown, as noxious odors drifted down the valley upon warm summery breezes. Under threat of lawsuits, the town abandoned the site in 1950, and appointed Marshall DeWitt to manage a new dumpsite, two miles up the road off the Elm Hollow Road. 

The original terms between the town and DeWitt were meager; three hundred dollars a year for rent and the use of the town’s bulldozer twice a year. However, over the next twenty years, as the volume of refuse at the site mounted, so did the cost to the town for DeWitt maintaining the site. In 1971, the town needed to renegotiate the then current contract with DeWitt, a far cry from the original contract.