History of Saranac Lake, New York
The area was first settled in 1819 by the Jacob Smith Moody family, from Keene, New Hampshire. Later settlers Pliny Miller and Alric Bushnell established a logging facility with a dam and sawmill in 1827, forming the basis for the village. The first school was built in 1838, and in 1849, William F. Martin built one of the first hotels in the Adirondacks— the "Saranac Lake House", known simply as "Martin's"— on the southeast shore of Lower Saranac Lake. Martin's would soon become a favorite place for hunters, woodsmen, and socialites to meet and interact.
In 1876 Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau arrived to treat his own tuberculosis; in 1884 he founded his first sanitarium, called "Little Red", for treatment of this disease, in which two patients were placed. Little Red was built on a small patch of land on the backside of Mount Pisgah which Trudeau had purchased. As more and more patients visited the region, including author Robert Louis Stevenson, Trudeau's fame grew. Soon, the sanatorium had grown such that it was entitled to its own post office, which would sort and deliver mail to its many patients. A research institute bearing Trudeau's name is located in Saranac Lake. The Trudeau Institute continues the study of the function of the immune system against many diseases, including tuberculosis. Telephone service was introduced in 1884, and the Chateaugay Railroad reached Saranac Lake from Plattsburgh in 1887.
The village was incorporated on June 16, 1892, and Dr. Trudeau was elected the first village president soon thereafter. Electricity was introduced on September 20, 1894, by installing water wheels on the former site of Pliny Miller's mill. Paul Smith, an important figure in the history of the village, purchased the Saranac Lake Electricity Co. in 1907, forming the Paul Smith's Electric Light and Power and Railroad Company, which eventually became part of Niagara-Mohawk. At the same time, the village began to stabilize, with public schools, fire and police departments, and other municipal facilities forming.
Although the cure cottages experienced a jump in activity at the turn of the century, with the development of antibiotics they slowly began to lose their importance, being phased out completely by 1954, when the sanatorium's last patient, Larry Doyle, left. Among the last of the prominent patients that sought treatment for Tuberculosis was Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon who died in Saranac Lake on August 1, 1944.
Saranac Lake became an especially busy town in the 1920s, with the construction of the Hotel Saranac and several new, permanent buildings after multiple fires destroyed a large part of downtown. During the 20s, entertainer Al Jolson and president Calvin Coolidge were semi-frequent visitors to the village— Jolson once performed a solo for three hours at the Pontiac Theater on Broadway Avenue. Bootlegging was common in the village. Albert Einstein had a summer home in Saranac Lake and could often be seen sailboating.
In recent years, Saranac Lake has become a more conventional tourist destination. The Hotel Saranac, until 2007, operated as a laboratory for hotel and restaurant management students of Paul Smith's College (now privately held), is a memorable early 20th century Deco structure. The former sanatorium is now the corporate call center for the American Management Association. Saranac Lake received the All-America City Award in 1998 due to three community projects: The Union Depot, the Riverwalk and the Mt. Pisgah ski Lodge.