Historic Saranac Lake is a non-profit, membership organization dedicated to the preservation of the history and architectural heritage of the Saranac Lake area of New York State in the Adirondacks. [1]
Historic Saranac Lake is a non-profit, membership organization dedicated to the preservation of the history and architectural heritage of the Saranac Lake area of New York State in the Adirondacks. [1]
Founded on 15 January 1980, the organization has successfully nominated over 170 properties for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1987, Historic Saranac Lake has also hosted lectures on local history and concerts of traditional Adirondack music. [2] They have joined with other organizations in preserving the 1894 laboratory of Edward Livingston Trudeau, the 1904 Union Depot of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad/New York Central Railroad and the cottage where, in 1945, Béla Bartók spent his last summer writing his Third Piano Concerto and Viola Concerto. [3] [4] They have also restored several historic houses that were in danger of being torn down. [5]
Historic Saranac Lake is led by Amy B. Catania, Executive Director, along with Museum Administrator Chessie Monks-Kelly and Museum Specialist Emily Banach. [6]
The organization offers walking tours of the village, and produces educational events that feature historic sites and lectures on the unique history of the region, from its popularity among sportsmen and nature lovers starting in the mid-18th century to its pre-eminence in the treatment of tuberculosis from 1890 to 1950. [7] They have published a number of articles and books focused on the lives and architecture of the region, including Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake by Philip L. Gallos. [8]
Since 2008, Historic Saranac Lake has operated a wiki that has grown to more than eight thousand pages with more than thirteen thousand photographs. [9] It covers Saranac Lake's geographically large school district (more than 600 square miles) which includes areas such as Coreys, Loon Lake, Paul Smiths and Gabriels. [10] The wiki was mentioned in a 2010 article on "Crowdsourcing" written by Tim Grove of the Smithsonian Institution on the American Association of State and Local History website. [11]
Saranac Lake is a village in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,887, making it the largest community by population in the Adirondack Park. The village is named after Upper, Middle and Lower Saranac lakes, which are nearby.
The Adirondack Park is a park in northeastern New York protecting the Adirondack Mountains. The park was established in 1892 for "the free use of all the people for their health and pleasure", and for watershed protection. At 6.1 million acres, it is the largest park in the contiguous United States.
The Adirondack Railroad is a heritage railway serving the Adirondack Park that operates over former New York Central Railroad trackage between Utica and Tupper Lake. The railroad is operated by the not-for-profit Adirondack Railroad Preservation Society, with train crews composed largely of volunteers.
List of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Essex County, New York.
List of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Franklin County, New York
Edward Livingston Trudeau was an American physician who established the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium at Saranac Lake for the treatment of tuberculosis.
The Great Camps of the Adirondack Mountains refers to the grandiose family compounds of cabins that were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century on lakes in the Adirondacks such as Spitfire Lake and Rainbow Lake. The camps were summer homes for the wealthy, where they could relax, host or attend parties, and enjoy the wilderness. In time, however, this was accomplished without leaving the comforts of civilization behind; some great camps even contained a bowling alley or movie theatre.
Lake Clear is a hamlet and a lake in Franklin County, New York, United States. The area is named for 940-acre (3.8 km2) Lake Clear, part of the original Seven Carries canoe route. It is located in the town of Harrietstown.
The Trudeau Institute is an independent, not-for-profit, biomedical research center located on a 42 acres (170,000 m2) campus in Saranac Lake, New York. Its scientific mission is to make breakthrough discoveries that lead to improved human health. Its current president is Bill Reiley. As of 2024, the institute employed 64 staff.
Between 1873 and 1945, Saranac Lake, New York, became a world-renowned center for the treatment of tuberculosis, using a treatment that involved exposing patients to as much fresh air as possible under conditions of complete bed-rest. In the process, a specific building type, the "cure cottage", developed, built by residents seeking to capitalize on the town's fame, by physicians, and often by the patients themselves. Many of these structures are extant, and their historic value has been recognized by listing on The National Register of Historic Places.
William Lincoln Coulter (1865–1907) was an American architect who came to Saranac Lake, New York, in the spring of 1896 in an effort to cure his tuberculosis, and stayed to design some of the finest Adirondack Great Camps and Cure Cottages in the area. Among the camps he designed were Knollwood Club, Camp Eagle Island and Prospect Point Camp; Camp Eagle Island has been designated a US National Historic Landmark. In Saranac Lake, in 1903, he designed a house at 147 Park Avenue for Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, that wits dubbed "The Porcupine" because it had so many fine points and belonged to a "quill pusher". He also designed the Coulter Cottage, built between 1897 and 1899.
The Mohawk and Malone Railway was a railroad that ran from the New York Central Railroad's main line at Herkimer north to Malone, crossing the northern Adirondacks at Tupper Lake Junction, just north of Tupper Lake. The road's founder, Dr. William Seward Webb, was president of the Wagner Palace Car Company and a Vanderbilt in-law. He began by purchasing the 3 ft narrow gauge Herkimer, Newport and Poland Railway, which ran 16 miles (26 km) from Herkimer to Poland, converting its trackage to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge, and straightening it to avoid multiple crossings of the West Canada Creek. He then had track built from Tupper Lake to Moira and thence to Malone. A separate company, the St. Lawrence and Adirondack Railway, completed the line to Montreal, Quebec.
Martha Reben was an author who wrote The Healing Woods (1952), The Way of the Wilderness (1954), and A Sharing of Joy (1963) as memoirs of her experiences camping on the shore of Weller Pond eight miles from Saranac Lake, New York, in the Adirondacks in 1931 in an attempt to cure herself of tuberculosis.
The Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium was a tuberculosis sanatorium established in Saranac Lake, New York in 1885 by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau. After Trudeau's death in 1915, the institution's name was changed to the Trudeau Sanatorium, following changes in conventional usage. It was listed under the latter name on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
The Church Street Historic District is a national historic district located in the village of Saranac Lake (Harrietstown) in Franklin County, New York. The district extends roughly along Church Street from Main Street to St. Bernard Street. It comprises twenty-seven buildings, including three churches, a medical laboratory, ten homes, two libraries, and six cure cottages, most built between the late 1870s and 1900.
Coulter Cottage is a historic cure cottage located at Saranac Lake, town of North Elba in Essex County, New York.
Larom-Welles Cottage is a historic cure cottage located at Saranac Lake in the town of North Elba, Essex and Franklin County, New York. It was built about 1905 and is a three-story wood-frame structure in the Shingle Style on a stone foundation and surmounted by a metal jerkin head gable roof. It has a two-story wing with a shed roof dormer. It has a two bay verandah and entrance porch with a second story sleeping porch. Also on the second floor is a cure porch. It was originally built for the priest of St. Lukes Episcopal Church, later the home of Dr. Edward Welles, a pioneer in thoracic surgery, who practiced at the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium. The house has been converted to six units.
Little Red is a historic cure cottage located at Saranac Lake, Franklin County, New York. It was built about 1885 and moved about 1890, 1920, and 1935. It is a small, rectangular, 14 feet by 18 feet, one room wood-frame building covered by a jerkin head gable roof. Simple posts support a decorative gable roof over a small front porch. It was the original cure cottage of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium founded by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau and the second building of the institution.
Saranac Lake Union Depot is a former New York Central Railroad station in Saranac Lake, New York. It was built in 1904 by the Delaware and Hudson Railway. In its heyday, the station served several daily trains going north to Malone, New York, on to Montreal, Quebec, and south to Utica, New York and Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Passenger coaches went direct from New York City to Saranac Lake until late 1952 or early 1953. Direct sleeping cars from trains such as North Star and then Iroquois continued as late as 1964 to the station. Tourist trains were operated on the 8-mile sector between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid by the Adirondack Railroad between 2000 and 2016. The tracks were removed in 2022 to enable construction of a rail-trail between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, to be completed in 2024.
Lake Kushaqua is a 380-acre (150 ha) lake near Loon Lake and Rainbow Lake in the town of Franklin, New York state. It is on the North Branch of the Saranac River. The shoreline is state owned except for two small inholdings. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation operates a campground on Kushaqua and nearby Buck Pond.