Contents - Historic Saranac Lake

Detail of a panoramic photo of Saranac Lake Village, c. 1909; for the full photograph, see here Saranac Lake is a village of five thousand, located near the center of the Adirondacks. Named for the village, this wiki also includes all the neighboring communities that make up the Saranac Lake Central School District; a list can be found in Towns, Villages and Hamlets under Places, below.

These communities share much of the history of the "outdoor life" of the region for both work and recreation — hunting and fishing, "sports" and guides, mountain climbing and lumbering, lean-tos and great camps, state lands and private preserves — going back to the early nineteenth century. In the late nineteenth century, Saranac Lake became an internationally known center for treating tuberculosis, a contagious disease that afflicted people in the prime of life, and killed many of those who contracted it. That history profoundly affected the village and its surrounding area, from its architecture to the astonishing variety of people who were drawn here in hope of a cure, many of whom stayed on. For a time it was also a center for winter sports, hosting international competitions well before nearby Lake Placid hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics.

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Ski Jumping from Maple Hill - 1899 Activities