The Mooers–Hemmingford Border Crossing connects the towns of Hemmingford, Quebec, to Mooers, New York, on the Canada–US border. It can be reached by Quebec Route 219 on the Canadian side and by Hemmingford Road (former New York State Route 22) on the American side. This crossing is open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The US government is still using the same border station it did when the crossing was first established in 1935. In 2014, the building was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Mooers Border Inspection station
Architectural description
The Mooers Border Inspection station is located on the west side State Route 22, in Mooers, New York, on a 142,550-square-foot lot. Set in an agricultural area, the station faces woodland and open fields on the east. The Canadian inspection station is within sight to the north. Cars are directed to the station from the north via an oval drive from the road. The site has been landscaped in a formal arrangement typically found at border stations with a series of approximately six evergreen trees spaced across the side and rear yard. An original landscaping plan called for spirea, barberry and weigila bushes together with Colorado spruce trees. The latter are still in place. There is a provision for parking south of the station.
The Inspection Station is part of a three-building complex with two residences, for customs and immigrations inspectors, which are located about fifty feet north-west and south-west of the station.
The station is three-part in plan with a -story, white-painted brick central block and two single story weatherboarded wings on the north and south. The central block is five bays wide beneath a steeply pitched, end gable, slate roof. There are shed-roof dormers on the east and west sides of the roof, and one interior brick chimney. Windows are 12/12 sash on the first floor and 8/8 sash in the second-floor dormers. There is a glass-and-aluminum replacement entry from 1953 on the east with a single leaf door beneath a transom.
The wings are four bays long and one bay wide under hipped, slate-covered roofs. The south wing is an inspection shed for vehicles, and that on the north is a garage for government vehicles. All four garage bays on the south have been filled in: two were sealed with dummy paneled doors, one enclosed with a pedestrian door, the fourth with a pair of handicap-accessible bathrooms entered beneath a door hood. There is a new wooden overhead door at the end of this wing. On the north wing, four bays have new wood overhead garage doors. Its end bay retains the paired 12/12 sash. The west facades of both wings have three and four bays of 12/12 sash.
A single-lane inspection canopy on steel-capped columns extends from the main block of the building at eaves level. It is an enlarged and raised 1972 replacement of the original, and is flanked on north and south with two flagpoles.
On the first-floor interior, a vestibule is formed by two parallel panelled counters on left and right of the entry. These are the only counters among the seven stations to have their original oak tops. There are two small bathrooms directly across from the entry to the right of a stair which connects the basement to the second floor. Partitions with glass windows and transoms divide each side of the floor space into offices and an open area. Interior finishes are typical for the border stations, with plaster walls, architrave door surrounds, picture rail, and baseboards defining the spaces. The public space retains its original red tile floors inlaid in cement, but the office spaces have linoleum laid over the wood floors. The two bathrooms have their original white tiled and plaster walls and some fixtures. Their terrazzo floors were added in 1967. Original lighting fixtures on the first floor have been replaced with ceiling-mounted fluorescent fixtures.
The cement-floored basement is divided into two mechanical rooms and a storage/mechanical room. The second floor has hardwood floors. The floor is divided into an office which was a search room originally, and two side-by-side detention rooms with their original plumbing fixtures. Original five-panel doors remain.