page_title: Saranac Lake, New York
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Saranac Lake, New York / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Talk 00:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC) Taken by User:Mwanner, 18 October, 2007.
context_page_description: Saranac Lake is a village in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,406. The village is named after Upper, Middle and Lower Saranac lakes, which are nearby.
  The village of Saranac Lake covers parts of three towns and two counties. The county line is within two blocks of the center of the village. At the 2010 census, 3,897 village residents lived in Harrietstown, 1,367 lived in North Elba, and 142 lived in St. Armand. The village boundaries do not touch the shores of any of the three Saranac Lakes; Lower Saranac Lake, the nearest, is a half mile west of the village. The northern reaches of Lake Flower, which is a wide part of the Saranac River downstream from the three Saranac Lakes, lie within the village. The town of Saranac is an entirely separate entity, 33 miles down the Saranac River to the northeast.
  The village lies within the boundaries of the Adirondack Park, 9 miles west of Lake Placid. These two villages, along with nearby Tupper Lake, comprise what is known as the Tri-Lakes region.
  Saranac Lake was named the best small town in New York State and ranked 11th in the United States in The 100 Best Small Towns in America.
context_section_description: This area was occupied by Iroquoian-speaking peoples for hundreds of years, and by other Indigenous peoples before them. The historic Mohawk people extended their hunting grounds to this area.
  The area was first settled by European Americans in 1819, more than three decades after the American Revolutionary War. As the Iroquois, mostly allies of the British, had been forced to cede their land to the United States following the war, millions of acres of New York were opened up to non-Native development in the postwar period.
  
  The Jacob Smith Moody family from Keene, New Hampshire was the first to settle here. In 1827, settlers Pliny Miller and Alric Bushnell established a logging facility with a dam and sawmill, around which the village developed. The first school was built in 1838. In 1849, William F. Martin built one of the first hotels in the Adirondack Mountains. His Saranac Lake House, known simply as "Martin's", was located on the southeast shore of Lower Saranac Lake. Martin's soon became a favorite place for hunters, woodsmen, and socialites to meet and interact. 
  In 1876, Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau arrived from New York City to treat his tuberculosis (TB) by a stay in the mountains. There was no medical treatment other than rest and nutrition at the time, and the disease was often fatal. Dry, cold air was considered to be good for patients, and sanitariums were also founded in European mountain resorts. Trudeau discovered that the fresh air and dry, alpine climate improved his health. In 1884, he founded his Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, starting with a small cottage, called "Little Red". Two sisters from New York City who suffered from TB became the first patients. Little Red, the first "cure cottage", was built on a small patch of land on the north side of Mount Pisgah. The plot had been purchased for Trudeau by several of his hunting guides.
  As more patients visited the region, including author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887, Trudeau's fame grew. Soon, the sanitarium had grown to such size that it was entitled to its own post office, which delivered mail to the  many patients. The Trudeau Institute, an independent medical research center, developed from Trudeau's work for the sanitarium. In 1964, the Trudeau Institute began researching the functions of the immune system and how it guards against many infectious diseases, including tuberculosis.
  William S. Fowler was a real estate speculator and developer who owned several properties around Saranac Lake. One was a large property just outside the town on top of a hill. He named it "Spion Kop" in honor of a battle that was fought in the Boer War in South Africa. In commemoration he placed miniature cannons on various parts of the property.
  Several buildings were erected as cottages where people could "cure" from TB. In 1919, Fowler sold the property to the Northwestern Fire Insurance Company. They turned it into a private sanatorium for their employees.
  In 1925, the sanatorium was sold to the National Vaudeville Artists. Around this time there were numerous vaudeville performers in Saranac Lake seeking cures at different locations. E. F. Albee, the owner and President of the National Vaudeville Artists held benefit programs in New York City to raise funds to construct the large sanitarium. The older cure cottages were torn down and some were moved. By the end of the 1920s, the Tudor Building was completed. It still stands today.
  In the 1930s the National Vaudeville Artists no longer existed. Antibiotics were used to treat TB, and the mountain sanitariums were converted to other uses. The Tudor Building was purchased by the Will Rogers Memorial Commission. In 1936, one year after Rogers' death, they renamed this building as the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital. A laboratory was built in later years and named the O'Donnell Memorial Laboratory in honor of R.J. O'Donnell, a well-known theater chain manager.
  In the 1970s, New York State forced the closure of the hospital, as it did not meet contemporary codes and updating was cost-prohibitive. The Will Rogers building
caption: Knollwood Club on Lower Saranac Lake, home of George Marshall
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