Hayden C. “Bing” Tormey stands in front of his Tormey’s IGA store in Onchiota (undated). (Photo provided by Phil Fitzpatrick via Historic Saranac Lake)

Onchiota’s old general store, the former Tormey’s IGA, is getting new life as The Station, a market being launched next month by a couple that bought the property last summer.

Hayden J. Tormey opened his general store at what is now Onchiota’s main intersection in 1921, according to his obituary. He added a gas station and vacation cabins, and also served as the hamlet’s postmaster for 40 years. He passed all of that on to his son Hayden C. “Bing” Tormey, who, according to his obituary, ran the store until 1972 and stayed on as postmaster into the 1980s. The quirky homemade signs he posted on the former storefront became legendary, and he remained one of Onchiota’s best known citizens until his death in 2005.

Melissa Lambert and her partner, who goes only by the name Echo, bought the property in August 2020. They live in Saranac Lake, but Lambert said they hope to move to Onchiota at some point.

They have renamed the store The Station and have scheduled an outdoor market there every Saturday in July from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Two local farms will sell their produce, Atlas Hoofed It and Little Big Farm, and several Saranac Lake ArtWorks artists will have booths as well, including potter Peter Shrope and painter Stephen Horne. There will also be live music by David Filsinger and his Celtic group from Trestle Street, a music and art studio he owns in Saranac Lake.

From noon to 3 p.m. on those July Saturdays, an open mic “and sonic collaboration session” is planned, called Wild Card. The Station has posters up around Saranac Lake saying the open mic is “for adventurous souls only!”

Lambert said they hope to have more of a general store there at some point. She conceives The Station as more than just a store but a local gathering place, with “unlikely people having conversations” about things such as health and where our food comes from.

“We’re kind of calling it ‘the general store and so much more,'” she said.

It has a website at stationadk.com.