Plattsburgh Republican, May 31, 1879The Chateaugay Railroad (or Railway) was created by the Chateaugay Iron Company in 1879 to build a narrow-gauge rail line from Lyon Mountain to Dannemora to move ore and charcoal for its iron-making operations. The line was extended to Standish in 1885, to Loon Lake in 1886 (Robert Louis Stevenson rode the Chateaugay to Loon Lake), and to Saranac Lake in 1887. The Delaware and Hudson railroad financed the section to Saranac Lake, and then organized the dual-gauge Saranac and Lake Placid Railroad in 1890, opened in 1893; the standard-gauge section was run as a branch of the New York Central.
The D&H took control of the railroad in 1901, and in 1903, combined the Lake Placid line with the main line as the Chateaugay and Lake Placid Railway, and converted the entire line to standard gauge. The Saranac Lake to Lake Placid section was sold to the New York Central in 1946, and finally abandoned in 1972.
Source
- Hilton, George W., American Narrow Gauge Railroads, Stanford University Press, 1990. ISBN 0804717311
Franklin Gazette, June 13, 1879
Elizabethtown Post, August 9, 1888The new railroad being built from Dannemora to the Chateaugay ore mine will at its summit reach an elevation of over 1600 feet above the tide, or within about 100 feet of the level of the Upper Saranac lake
Franklin Gazette, June 13, 1879
We understand that arrangements are contemplated for the organization of a surveying party to select the best stage route from some point on the Chateaugay railroad line to the westward of the PHILLIPS Separator to the GOLDSMITH place, Hunter's Home, WARDNER'S and SMITH'S.
Plattsburgh Sentinel, November 19, 1886
THE NEW ADIRONDACK ROUTE
Opening of the Chateaugay Railroad Extension-- A Delightful Ride and Charming Scenery.
Last Monday the extension of the Chateaugay railroad was opened for traffic to Loon Lake. A train now leaves Plattsburgh at 7 A.M., arriving at Loon Lake station at 11 o'clock, connecting with stage for Ferd. Chase's, which is reached at 11:30. After dinner stages leave for Bloomingdale and Saranac Lake. Returning, the train leaves Loon Lake at 1:10 P. M, arriving at Plattsburgh at 5:00. The business over the new line has thus far exceeded the expectation of its officers. A large amount of freight for the Adirondack stores and logging camps has been carried, while the travel for this season of the year has been good and is daily increasing.
Of course our readers are more or less familiar with the line from Plattsburgh to Lyon Mountain and the beautiful scenery along the route. After leaving Lyon Mountain the road takes a south-westerly course, passing around the head of the Upper Chateaugay Lake at an elevation of over 400 feet above the water, affording a fine view of this attractive lake. Between Lyon Mountain and Standish the road forms a bow or loop of about a mile in length and only 1800 feet across.
Standish, the first station, presents a business appearance. The charcoal blast furnace, the largest in the world, is virtually completed. The ovens are in process of drying and it is expected that it will be placed in blast about the first of next month. The new store, offices and waiting rooms are in a large two story building recently completed by the side of the track, which is an attractive looking structure, finished in the best manner. Large coal sheds are also under way.
Two miles beyond Standish are the Twin Ponds and some seven miles farther on Wolf Pond. The next station is Plumadore, although the pond is about a mile from the road and a trail will be cut through the woods to it. These points are considered the best hunting and fishing grounds in the eastern portion of the Adirondacks and will be favorite resorts for sportsmen.
At Loon Lake station, the present terminus of the road, will be found Mr. D. M. Roberts, of Chateaugay, occupying the temporary waiting room and ticket office— a small shanty by the side of the track. Here he transacts the business of that station, cooks his meals and sleeps, there being no houses in the vicinity. But this will not be long. The foundation walls for a large depot building are laid and also for a large freight house. The frames are being erected and the buildings will soon be enclosed. The company will build a residence for Mr. Roberts later. Trains here turn on a Y, and a water tank has been put up. This is destined to be an important station. A four-horse stage from Chase's connects with each train. The road is good and the transfer from the cars to the stage for a ride of some three or four miles along the shore of Loon Lake is a pleasant change, the drive giving one an appetite for the dinner which Ferd. Chase knows so well how to prepare.
From Standish to Loon Lake the railroad is built through a dense forest, but the road-bed is remarkably smooth, and has been constructed with especial regard for safety. The present time-table is only for the winter. Next spring fast trains will be put on, making the distance from Plattsburgh in not to exceed two and a half hours. Through tickets will be on sale in all the principal cities, and tourists will not be slow in making the discover that this new road is the shortest, quickest and most comfortable route to the famous Adirondack resorts. Even the present winter arrangement enables parties leaving New York in the evening to reach the Adirondacks during the forenoon of the next day, something that has heretofore been an impossibility, even in summer.
The Great Northwestern Telegraph Company has completed its line through to Loon Lake, connecting with all the leading hotels in the woods. The National Express Company is about closing a contract with the road for conveying the express freight, and will soon put messengers on the trains. The amount of express freight which goes into the Adirondacks during the year is wonderful. Many days last summer over nine tons were transferred from the train at Ausable.
M. L. French, the Superintendent, will be found "the right man in the right place." Nothing that will tend to render the new route interesting and popular to the tourist fails to receive his attention, while "Tim." Long, the popular conductor, points out the attractions along the way and is always ready to impart information in regard to the thousand and one things which a conductor is always supposed to know.
ITEMS ALONG THE LINE.
—Loon Lake is now covered with ice.
—The sleighing is excellent throughout the Adirondacks.
—Drilling is going on at Lyon Mountain to ascertain the depth of a new vein of iron ore.
—George Kennedy, the telegraph lineman, was over the road on Wednesday, adjusting the instruments.
—Two ladies who had been at Saranac Lake and were returning to their home at Malone, passed over this road on Wednesday. They chose this route in preference to the stage ride, even though it involved a stoppage over night in Plattsburgh
Plattsburgh Republican, July 16, 1887
CHATEAUGAY RAILWAY Co.
A Railroad to be Built to Lower Saranac.
Work Already Commenced.
The Chateaugay Railway Company has just been organized, with the following board of directors: Smith M. Weed, Andrew Williams, R. M. Olyphant, Le Grand B. Cannon, James A. Burden, A. L. Inman, Edward Hall, M. F. Parkhurst, M. L. French, Wm. E. Smith, P. S. Palmer, Henry Davis, R. A. Weed.
The object of this new organization is understood to be to build and acquire a railway line from Lyon Mountain to Saranac Lake Village, which is located near the outlet of Lower Saranac Lake. As is well known a road is already built from Lyon Mountain to Loon Lake, and the distance by the new line will be about eighteen or twenty miles, thus making railway connection complete between Plattsburgh and Lower Saranac Lake, a distance of about seventy-five miles. For some five miles beyond Loon Lake the route is already fixed, and nearly follows the present highway to Paul Smith's, running along by the west side of Mud Pond, and crossing the North Branch of the Saranac near the outlet of Round Pond. From there the route chosen will depend upon surveys now being made, but it will strike across the country by the most feasible line to its terminus, Saranac Lake Village, the seat of the well known Adirondack Sanitarium, and one of the most popular and well patronized health and pleasure resorts in the whole northern wilderness region, both in summer and winter.
We understand it is the intention of the management of this new enterprise to push it to completion with the greatest possible vigor and it will probably be completed early this fall.
The new route into the Adirondacks via Plattsburgh and the Chateaugay Railroad line is proving popular beyond the most sanguine expectation. The comparative ease with which summer tourists reach the cool retreats of the great natural park of Northern New York by this route is the strong point which commends itself at sight. To begin with the distance is nearly seventy miles nearer from New York city and other points south to the most popular Adirondack resorts than by any other railroad route. For instance, passengers leaving New York at 7 o'clock p. m., take the Adirondack sleeper, which is dropped from the train at Plattsburgh at 5:50 next morning, giving one hour for breakfast and at 6.50 a. m. they take the drawing room car on the morning train and, rising to an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet in thirty miles find themselves in an entirely new and cooler and more healthful atmosphere, speeding through the primitive wilderness where the very air is laden with the healing and health giving odors of the balsam and pine, and at noon they are at Paul Smith's or other great resorts in the heart of the wilderness, after a stage drive which is not long enough to induce serious fatigue for even delicate invalids. Thus it is easy to see why the Chateaugay route into the wilderness has at once sprung into such remarkable popularity. This road is really the first on the ground, and it is evidently the intention of the projectors to occupy that ground permanently. At a meeting of the directors of the Chateaugay Railway company on Wednesday evening at the Chateaugay Ore & Iron Co.'s office, Hon. Smith M. Weed was elected president, and Mr. A. L. Inman secretary and treasurer.
Plattsburgh Republican, September 3, 1887
The new railroad from Loon Lake to Saranac Lake village is being pushed to completion, over two hundred men now being employed on it. The whole distance is 19 miles, four and one half of which across the Oregon prairie is on a perfectly straight line and for a distance of 9 1/2 miles there are only two or three slight curves. The line will undoubtedly be in operation the whole distance before Christmas.
The Chateaugay Railway Company have located their extension from Loon Lake to Saranac Lake village. It runs on the west side of Mud Pond, crossing to the island near its head and crossing Round Pond at its root skirts along its east shore, past Buck Pond, Oregon Pond, &c. and leaving Rainbow to the right runs across the “Oregon” prairie passing two miles west of Bloomingdale and within about four miles of Paul Smith's.
Plattsburgh Republican, December 17, 1887
EDITORIAL NOTES.
Saranac Lake Village. The Adirondack Sanitarium, &c .
Taking advantage of the completion of the Chateaugay Railway to Saranac Lake, we made a trip over the line last Monday for the purpose of gathering material which might interest our readers. The entire length of the road from its Lake Champlain terminus at Plattsburgh is seventy-two miles. At Loon Lake 1,730 feet above sea level, and 54 miles from Plattsburgh the road emerges into an opening after running for sixteen miles through a dense and almost unbroken forest. Thence keeping a southerly course it traverses the base of Loon Lake Mountain by an almost unbroken series of curves, winding in and out of the dark evergreen forest, and reaching Round Pond four miles beyond, at an altitude of 1,677 feet. Here at the foot of Round Pond (famous for monster trout) it crosses to the south side of the North Branch of the Saranac and skirts along Round Pond, bringing into fine view the densely wooded Sable range of mountains and winding past Buck Pond on the left and Oregon Pond on the right strikes off nearly south towards its destination at Saranac Lake. Rainbow Station, at present consisting of a guide board, two miles from Wardner's at the head of Rainbow Lake, is passed at a distance of three miles from Round Pond, altitude 1,673 feet; three miles across a level uninhabited country reaches Vermontville, at the edge of the prairie where there is no station yet. The first settlers here were from Vermont, hence the name. The broad plain which stretches across the country here, comprising an area of thousands of acres is what is known as "Oregon." It is level and reaches nearly from one branch of the Saranac to the other. It is an easy country to build a railroad through and wherever the surface is cut for ditching or grading it shows white sand, with a very thin scurf of vegetable mould on the surface, on which little grows that is of much value. At no very distant day in the past there must have been a lake here, reaching nearly across from the north to the south branch of the Saranac river. On this plain little attempt at cultivation has been made. The inhabitants say the land is so "frosty" that it is worthless, but it also seems too sandy to ever be of much account, without heavy expense for fertilizers. Along the west border of this prairie rises a range of low hills, and here the land is excellent, the native forest being maple and beech, of which fine groves yet remain, maple sugar being one of the important productions, while the fields and buildings bear indications of good crops. Beyond Rainbow station the line crosses "[Negro Brook]," a small stream, the water of which is nearly black, and the road runs down this brook, crossing it four times. Beyond Vermontville the road strikes a straight line, and holds it for four miles, across what is known as the Toof Marsh, a swamp of a thousand acres or more, soundings of fourteen feet down into the muck or sand having been made with poles by the engineers. One of the natural curiosities is a ledge of rock which rises out of this swamp, and just beyond the only rock cut on the road between Standish and Saranac Lake is reached and that is a very small one. At Bloomingdale station two miles and a half beyond Vermontville and six miles and a half this side of Saranac Lake a station house for freight and temporary offices is nearly finished. From this point the distance is six miles to Paul Smith's and two miles to Bloomingdale and thirteen miles to Prospect House. South of this station the roads runs along the border of Colby Pond, a fine sheet of water a mile or more long with pleasant wooded shores.
On a fine piece of upland to the westward is the handsome home farm of Leonard Nokes, the old pioneer pathfinder and road-builder, who superintended the building of the plank road from Saranac to the Chateaugay Ore Bed in 1874, an enterprise which constituted the first vigor-step [sic] by the Chateaugay Ore & Iron Co. in developing their great iron mine, which has since turned out so many hundred thousand tons of the best steel ores, building up a village at Lyon Mountain second in population to only one in Clinton county, and transforming what was before a trackless wilderness into a busy locality. The old road builder doubtless lives over his past life as he sits in his pleasant home and sees the trains of cars pass and re-pass on the plain below , and we hope he will live many years yet to see the boom which this railroad enterprise is destined to introduce into his own region...
Malone Gazette, December 19, 1890
The Plattsburgh Republican is authority for the statement that the Chateaugay railroad is to be extended next spring to Miller's Hotel, at the foot of Lower Saranac Lake, where it will connect with a steamer running through the new lock to the Bartlett place on Round Lake, and thence by portage with a steamer on Upper Saranac Lake.
Elizabethtown Post, January 1, 1903
Chateaugay Railroad Improvement
The work of changing the Chateaugay Railroad from a narrow to a standard gauge was continued yesterday, the line being widened between Cadyville, twelve miles from Plattsburgh, and Lyon Mountain, a distance of twenty-two miles. All of the construction gangs of The Delaware and Hudson Company north of Saratoga were engaged in the work, which was favored by fine weather. The crews started out at 3 o'clock in the morning and completed their work during the afternoon. It is estimated that 310,000 spikes were driven in the twelve hours that the men worked. All of the narrow gauge engines, trucks, etc., were taken to Lyon Mountain Saturday, and from now on the broad gauge will be operated between Plattsburgh and Lyon Mountain, and the narrow gauge beyond that point to Saranac Lake. The rest of the road will be broadened within the next six months, enabling trains to run through from Troy.
—TroyTimes, Dec. 29, 1902
Newspaper clipping, Dec. 5, 1907, from the Ralph Kelly scrapbook, Adirondack Collection, Saranac Lake Free Library
Twenty Years Ago.
On Dec. 5, twenty years ago, the first railway train was operated over the lines of the Chateaugay Railroad into the village of Saranac Lake. The conductor was Timothy Long and the engineer Edward Hewitt, A. D. Manning was in charge of the Saranac lake station. Mr. Long was the conductor in charge of the train which made the anniversary run on Thursday last and Mr. Manning greeted him in the same capacity that he did on that memorable trip of twenty years ago. Mr. Hewitt is still in the railroad business, but is no longer on this run while Mr. Manning and Mr. Long continue to be very important and reliable parts of the human organism of the Delaware & Hudson, which is the successor of the Chateaugay. It would be interesting to compare the conditions of twenty years ago with those of today. As all know the Chateaugay was a narrow gauge road and Saranac Lake was a small settlement in the wilderness. The railroad today is standard gauge and the track and the excellence of the rolling stock compare very favorable with that of any railroad in the world. The railroad has been improved as the village has progressed, but its managers have had to hurry to keep pace with the growth of the town.
