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HISTORIC SARANAC LAKE
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Image of the week: Congratulations, Graduates!

6/29/2021

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The 1933 class of Saranac Lake High School in front of Petrova School. Among the graduates is Thomas B. Cantwell, who went on to be an attorney and civic leader, including serving as President of the Saranac Lake Free Library. The photograph was taken by William F. Kollecker. Congratulations to the Saranac Lake High School class of 2021 and other local high schoolers who graduated last week! You have completed an historic high school career to be sure!

-1933 SLHS graduates, photograph by William F. Kollecker. Historic Saranac Lake Collection, TCR 637.
-2021 SLHS graduates, photograph courtesy of Amy Catania.
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Tuberculosis Thursday: Dr. Baldwin

6/24/2021

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This Tuberculosis Thursday, we're sharing one of our favorite history dads! Dr. Edward Baldwin is one of the fathers featured in our special mini exhibit on view through the end of this week. Dr. Baldwin came to Saranac Lake to cure from tuberculosis at the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium (later Trudeau Sanatorium). There he met Dr. Edward L. Trudeau, who was astonished to hear that Dr. Baldwin had used a borrowed high school microscope (on display here) to diagnose his own case of TB. Dr. Trudeau invited him to work at the Saranac Laboratory, and the Baldwins moved into a home across from the Trudeaus on Church Street. Dr. Baldwin and his wife Mary Caroline Ives had one son, Henry Ives Baldwin.

Learn more about Dr. Baldwin on our wiki, and be sure to come in to see our history dads mini exhibit this week!
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Event: Contested terrain Book Talk

6/23/2021

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Join us on June 30th at 6:00PM for an online discussion with Phil Terrie about his book, Contested Terrain. Dr. Terrie is Professor Emeritus, American Culture Studies and Environmental Studies Bowling Green State University. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Ann Norton Greene, Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania. In advance of the discussion, attendees are encouraged to read Terrie's influential book about the history of the Park, described by the New York Review of Books as, "the finest general Adirondack history yet written, the book to which all subsequent accounts will have to refer."

Registration is required by filling out this form and participants will receive an email with the Zoom link the day before the presentation.

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Image of the week: Baseball is back!

6/22/2021

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Did you know that Saranac Lake has a long history of baseball teams? Here's a Saranac Lake baseball team behind Petrova School, sometime around 1930. These are likely members of the Saranac Lake Red Sox, who played in the old Northern League against teams from Northern New York and Vermont. Welcome back, Surge Baseball!

[Photograph of baseball team by Edward L. Gockeler. Historic Saranac Lake Collection.]
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Happy Father's Day!

6/20/2021

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Here's to dads throughout Saranac Lake history, starting with our "founding father," Dr. Edward L. Trudeau! If you haven't had a chance to check out our historic dads mini exhibit, it will be up until Saturday. The mini exhibit is included with regular admission. Come on in to see some of our favorite fathers in Saranac Lake history and enter to win a prize!

Happy Father's Day to Saranac Lake dads, past and present! Stay tuned as we share some more of our favorite historic dads this week!
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Mini Exhibit: History Dads

6/16/2021

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Pay a visit to the Saranac Laboratory Museum through June 26 to see our mini exhibit on some of our favorite fathers in Saranac Lake history, in honor of Father's Day and New York State's Path Through History Weekend! This mini exhibit is included with admission to the museum. Visitors can vote for their favorite history dad and enter to win a dad-themed prize pack from Historic Saranac Lake!

The Saranac Laboratory Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10AM - 5PM. Admission is $7/adults, $5/students, and free for children and members of Historic Saranac Lake. We hope to see you soon!

Learn more about Path Through History Weekend.
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History Matters: Fresh Eyes

6/15/2021

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By Amy Catania
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Unidentified Nurse in Saranac Lake. Photo Courtesy of Dan Bodah.

“The historical sense involves a perception, 
not only of the pastness of the past, 
but of its presence” 

― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Soon we will open a new exhibition at the museum called “Pandemic Perspectives.” The exhibit will highlight different experiences in Saranac Lake during the TB curing years, and visitors will be invited to make connections to life during COVID-19.

Creating an exhibit is a team effort. Each person on our small staff brings a different set of skills from research, to writing, to design. Thanks to the expertise of our archivist and curator, Chessie Monks-Kelly, we draw upon our growing collection of artifacts, images, and documents. With help from trusty volunteers like Marty Rowley and Rob Russell and hardworking local businesses like Compass Printing and Stacked Graphics, it all comes together.

This new exhibit is a simple concept: twelve panels, each labeled with one word like “gratitude” or “fear,” a photo, a short caption, a quote, and a question. Quotes from literature explore real and imaginary pandemics from the past. From The Plague, by Albert Camus, to The Birds, by Daphne du Maurier, literature reminds us that our struggles and triumphs are part of a vast human experience that extends across cultures and generations. Each panel may take no more than a minute to read, but we expect they will conjure up a wealth of reactions and questions.

In May, we hired a new staff person, Mahala Nyberg, and she got right to work on the exhibit. Not knowing a cure chair from a stone pig, she brought fresh eyes to the project. One day, as she sorted through photos documenting the experience of COVID-19 in Saranac Lake, Mahala expressed astonishment at images of handmade signs posted in the windows of local businesses during the lockdown. She lived through the pandemic in her rural hometown, where there is no downtown. People drive to Walmart or Wegmans for what they need, and so, during the long spring of 2020, Mahala never saw a homemade sign in a local business wishing her and her neighbors well.
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Edward Jones office in the old Newberry's Building, 2020. Historic Saranac Lake archive.
The simple signs on the doors of friendly local businesses like the Dance Sanctuary, Nori's, the Community Store, and Lakeview Deli speak to a powerful sense of place we sometimes take for granted.

Drawn by Saranac Lake’s strong sense of community, Ernest White II recently visited the village to record an episode for his popular travel show, “Fly Brother.” One rainy day in May, I joined a group of locals to walk around town with Ernest and his film crew.

Ernest’s tour of the Adirondacks will ultimately be condensed down to a thirty-minute episode, so we knew most of what we showed him won’t make the cut. Seeing town from the eyes of a world traveler, it’s easy to notice the rundown side of Saranac Lake. We stood in Berkeley Green, eating soggy s’mores in the rain. There, in the space where the beautiful Berkeley Hotel once stood, it was hard not to think about all that’s been lost. The village doesn’t always look like such a great tourist destination, especially on a cold and rainy day.
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Mayor Clyde Rabideau fishing with Ernest White II
Still, Ernest seemed pleased with the spirit of the place. We talked about cure porches, hunting traditions, famous visitors, our museum expansion project, and the restoration of the Hotel Saranac. Mayor Rabideau helped him catch a fish. 

At the end of my interview, Ernest asked me what I have liked the most about living in Saranac Lake. I thought about those signs in the downtown windows in the last year, and I told him the truth, although it was absolutely the wrong answer for a tourism sound bite. Standing there in Berkeley Green in the rain, I answered simply, “Being a mom. Saranac Lake has been a great place to raise a family.” 

My answer I’m sure will hit the cutting room floor with a thud. But I am glad he asked me the question. It helped remind me of what is right here in front of my face, waiting to be seen with fresh eyes.
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Tuberculosis THursday: National Dairy Month

6/10/2021

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June is National Dairy Month, so for today's Tuberculosis Thursday post we're sharing about Saranac Lake's surprising dairy history! TB patients taking the cure were prescribed diets that were high in fat and protein to help them gain weight. Patients might be required to drink as many as eight glasses of milk a DAY. Dozens of dairy farms were established in Saranac Lake and the surrounding area to help support these dietary requirements.

This photograph shows just a few of the milk-related artifacts in our collection, including milk bottles, milk caps, and even an ashtray! To learn more about our local dairy history, head to the wiki.

PS - can you guess which favorite local summer tradition was born out of one of these dairies?!
3 Comments

Image of the week: Jack Frost

6/8/2021

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It's HOT! So how about a visit from Jack Frost to cool you down? This early-1900s Winter Carnival postcard shows an icicle-covered Jack Frost riding through downtown Saranac Lake. Milo Miller's store, built in 1867, is visible behind the float. This building is the oldest standing commercial building in Saranac Lake and now houses Owl's Nest Pizza. This card was sent by a tuberculosis patient in 1909, and reads, "Wed. Morn. Had a good night, feel more like myself. How is this."

[Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2021.3.85. Courtesy of Florence Wright.]
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Tour: Little Red and the Trudeau Statue

6/2/2021

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Take a tour of one of Saranac Lake's first cure cottages and visit to the statue of Dr. Trudeau. You will get to go inside of Little Red and learn more about its history, as well as learning about the Trudeau Statue's claim to fame. Advance ticket purchases or RSVPs are required in advance by noon on the Monday before the tour. A maximum of 8 tickets will be available for this tour. Tickets are non-refundable. Masks are required! Rain or shine. $10/person, children and members of Historic Saranac Lake free. Tickets include same-day admission to the Saranac Laboratory Museum. Buy tickets!

If you wish to reserve a ticket but do not want to purchase one online, please call HSL at 518-891-4606 or email us at mail@historicsaranaclake.org to guarantee a ticket. You will receive an email from us with instructions on where to meet our guide the day before the tour.

All fees help support Historic Saranac Lake!
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Historic Saranac Lake at the Saranac Laboratory Museum
​89 Church Street, Suite 2, Saranac Lake, New York 12983
​(518) 891-4606 - mail@historicsaranaclake.org ​
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Historic Saranac Lake is funded in part by:
  • the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature;
  • a Humanities New York SHARP Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal American Rescue Plan Act;
  • an Essex County Arts Council Cultural Assistance Program Grant supported by the Essex County Board of Supervisors.
Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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​© 2023 Historic Saranac Lake. All Rights Reserved. Historic photographs from Historic Saranac Lake Collection, unless otherwise noted. Copy and reuse restrictions apply. ​
  • Visit
  • Events
    • CHAPEL LIGHTS
  • About
    • Visit
    • Historic Saranac Lake
    • The Museum
    • Trudeau Building >
      • Contractor Portal 2023
    • PRESS Room
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  • Research
    • Collections
    • Oral History Project
    • Local Wiki
    • Resources
    • HISTORY MATTERS Blog
  • Projects
    • Trudeau Building
    • Architectural Preservation
    • Collections
    • The Bartok Cabin
    • Oral History Project
    • Cure Porch on Wheels
    • School Outreach
    • Special Exhibits >
      • Pandemic Perspectives
  • Support Us
  • Contact
  • Museum Store