Adirondack Park

Adirondack Park
New York Forest Preserve
Long Pond, in the Saint Regis Canoe Area.
Name origin: Mohawk for tree eaters.
Country United States
State New York
Region Upstate New York
Highest point Mount Marcy
 - location Keene Valley, Essex County
 - elevation 5,344 ft (1,629 m)
 - coordinates 44°06′45″N 73°55′26″W / 44.11250°N 73.92389°W / 44.11250; -73.92389
Lowest point
 - location Ausable River at Lake Champlain, Essex County
 - elevation 120 ft (37 m)
 - coordinates 44°34′52″N 73°26′20″W / 44.58111°N 73.43889°W / 44.58111; -73.43889
Area 9,375 sq mi (24,281 km2)
Biomes Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, boreal forest, alpine tundra
Founded New York State Forest Preserve
Date 1885
Management Adirondack Park Agency, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
 - location Ray Brook, Essex County
IUCN category V - Protected Landscape/Seascape
NHL designation 1966[1]
NRHP Ref# 66000891
Park area highlighted in green, bounded by the Blue Line, within New York state.
New York within the United States.

The Adirondack Park includes New York's Forest Preserve in Upstate New York, United States. The park's boundary corresponds to the Adirondack Mountains. Unlike most preserves, about 52 per cent of the land is privately owned. This area contains 102 towns and villages.[2] The year-round population is 132,000, with 200,000 seasonal residents. The inclusion of human communities makes the park one of the great experiments in conservation in the industrialized world.[3]

The park's 6.1 million ac (2.5 million ha) include more than 10,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, and a wide variety of habitats including wetlands and old-growth forests.

History

For the history of the area before the formation of the park, see The History of the Adirondack Mountains.

Early tourism

A guide (left), his sport, and his Adirondack guideboat

Before the 19th century the wilderness was viewed as desolate and forbidding. As Romanticism developed in the United States, the view of wilderness became more positive, as seen in the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The 1849 publication of Joel Tyler Headley's Adirondack; or, Life in the Woods triggered the development of hotels and stage coach lines. William Henry Harrison Murray's 1869 wilderness guidebook depicted the area as a place of relaxation and pleasure rather than a natural obstacle.

Financier and railroad promoter Thomas Clark Durant acquired a large tract of central Adirondack land and built a railroad from Saratoga Springs to North Creek. By 1875, there were more than two hundred hotels in the Adirondacks including Paul Smith's Hotel. About this time, the Great Camps were developed.

Moves to protect New York's water supply

Following the Civil War, Reconstruction Era economic expansion led to an increase logging and deforestation, especially in the southern Adirondacks.

In 1870 Verplanck Colvin made the first recorded ascent of Seward Mountain[1] during which he saw the extensive damage done by lumbermen. He wrote a report which was read at the Albany Institute and printed by the New York State Museum of Natural History. In 1872 he was named to the newly created post of Superintendent of the Adirondack Survey and given a $1000 budget by the state legislature to institute a survey of the Adirondacks.

In 1873 he wrote a report arguing that if the Adirondack watershed was allowed to deteriorate, it would threaten the viability of the Erie Canal, which was then vital to New York's economy. He was subsequently appointed superintendent of the New York state land survey. In 1873, he recommended the creation of a state forest preserve covering the entire Adirondack region.

Article XIV: forever wild

In 1884, a commission chaired by botanist Charles Sprague Sargent recommended establishment of a forest preserve, to be "forever kept as wild forest lands."[4] and in 1885, the New York State Legislature designated particular counties in the state as places where Forest Preserve could be acquired in the future. State land in these areas was to be conserved and never put up for sale or lease.

In 1894, Article VII, Section 7, (renumbered in 1938 as Article XIV, Section 1)[5] of the New York State Constitution was adopted, which reads in part:

The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.

In 1902, the legislature passed a bill defining the Adirondack Park for the first time in terms of the counties and towns within it. In 1912 the legislature further clarified that the park included the privately owned lands within as well as the public holdings.

The restrictions on development and lumbering embodied in Article XIV have withstood many challenges from timber interests, hydropower projects, and large-scale tourism development interests.[6] Further, the language of the article, and decades of legal experience in its defence, are widely recognized as having laid the foundation for the U.S. National Wilderness Act of 1964. As a result of the legal protections, many pieces of the original forest of the Adirondacks have never been logged and are old-growth forest.[7]

20th Century development

Early in the 1900s, recreational use increased dramatically. The State Conservation Department (now the DEC) responded by building more facilities: boat docks, tent platforms, lean-tos, and telephone and electrical lines. With the building of Interstate 87 in the 1960s, private lands came under great pressure for development. This growing crisis led to the 1971 creation of The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to develop long-range land-use plans for both the public and private lands within the Blue Line. In consultation with the DEC, the APA formulated the State Land Master Plan which was adopted into law in 1973. The plan is designed to channel much of the future growth in the Park around existing communities, where roads, utilities, services, and supplies already exist.[8]

Comparison of the Park in 1900 and 2000

Year: 1900 2000
Area of the Park 2,800,000 acres (1,100,000 ha) 6,000,000 acres (2,400,000 ha)
State-owned area 1,200,000 acres (490,000 ha) (43%) 2,400,000 acres (970,000 ha) (40%)
Travel time, New York City to Old Forge 6.5 hours by railroad 5 hours by car
Permanent park residents 100,000 130,000
Length of public road in the park 4,154 miles (6,685 km) plus 500 miles (800 km) of passenger railroad track 6,970 miles (11,220 km)
Industry 92 sawmills, 15 iron mines, 10 pulp/paper mills 40 sawmills, 1 pulp/paper mill

These data were compiled by the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York.

In 2008 The Nature Conservancy purchased Follensby Pond – about 14,600 acres (5,900 ha) of private land inside the park boundary – for $16 million.[9] The group plans to sell the land to the state which will add it to the forest preserve once the remaining leases for recreational hunting and fishing on the property expire.[9]

Park management

DEC sign marking state-land boundary.

The park is managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and by the Adirondack Park Agency. This system of management is distinctly different from that of New York's state park system, which is managed by the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. According to the State Land Master Plan, state lands are classified.

The Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan (APLUDP) applies to private land use and development. It defines APA jurisdiction and is designed to direct and cluster development to minimize impact.

Land use classifications

(The following areas are rounded to the nearest per cent.) 50% of the park is privately owned, 44% state-owned, and 6% is water.[10]

Private land use

Adirondack Park state land use

Advocacy

A number of non-governmental organizations are interested in protecting the Adirondack Park:

Conservation

Loon at lake Sagamore.

The fur trade led to the near extinction of beaver in 1893.[15] Other species, such as the moose, the wolf, and the cougar were hunted either for their meat, for sport, or because they were seen as a threat to livestock.[15] Reintroduction efforts for beaver began around 1904 by combining the remaining beaver in the Adirondacks with those of Canada and later on those from Yellowstone[15] The population quickly grew to around 2000 roughly ten years and around 20,000 in 1921 with the addition of beaver in different areas of the Park.[15] Although this reintroduction was marked as a success, the elevated beaver population was found to have negative economic impacts on waterways and timber sources.[15]

The trend of man attempting to manage nature would continue with the introduction of elk to the Adirondacks, a species that is unclear to have ever previously occupied the region.[15] After two previously failed attempts to introduce elk, in 1903 over 150 elks were reported by the State of New York Forest, Fish, and Game Commission to have been released and surviving in the park.[15] The elk population increased for several years only to decline due to poaching.[15] To protect and maintain the elk population in the future, the DeBar Mountain Game Refuge was established within the Forest Preserve.[15] It should be noted that this act of preserving the species was motivated for hunting purposes rather than an ecological or natural aspect.[15] The Game Refuge was defined by a wire fence, numerous postings, and caretakers employed by the State.[15] This effort to control nature was also observed in the actions of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), work crews who established access roads and water supply expansion.[15] A negative result of the CCC coming to the Park was their trapping and killing of "vermin", which were animals such as hawks, owls, fox, and weasels that preyed on other species sought after by hunters and fishermen.[15] This proved to have unanticipated ecological consequences, most notably the overpopulation of deer which was reported by the New York State Conservation Department in 1945.[15]

Ongoing efforts have been made to reintroduce native fauna that had been lost in the park during earlier exploitation. Animals in various stages of reintroduction include the beaver, the fisher, the American marten, the moose, the Canadian lynx, and the osprey. Not all of these restoration efforts have been successful yet. There are 53 known species of mammals that live in the park.[16]

There are more than 3,000 lakes and 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of streams and rivers. Many areas within the park are devoid of settlements and distant from usable roads. The park includes over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of hiking trails; these trails comprise the largest trail system in the nation.[17]

Tourism and recreation

Canoe in Adirondack Park.

An estimated 7-10 million tourists visit the park annually. There are numerous accommodations, including cabins, hunting lodges, villas, and hotels, in and around Lake Placid, Lake George, Saranac Lake, Old Forge, Schroon Lake and the St. Regis Lakes.

Although the climate during the winter months can be severe, with temperatures falling below −30 °F (−34.4 °C), a number of sanatoriums were located there in the early twentieth century because of the positive effect the air had on tuberculosis patients.

Golf courses within the park border include the Ausable Club, the Lake Placid Club, and the Ticonderoga Country Club. Many of the Adirondack Mountains, such as Whiteface Mountain (Wilmington), Mt. Pisgah (Saranac Lake), and Mt. Morris (Tupper Lake) have been developed as ski areas.

Hunting and fishing are allowed in the Adirondack Park, although in many places there are strict regulations. Because of these regulations, the large tourist population has not overfished the area, and as such, the brooks, rivers, ponds and lakes are home to large trout and black bass populations.

Though restricted from much of the park, snowmobile enthusiasts can ride on a large network of trails.

Cultural

The Adirondack Park Agency visitor interpretive centers are designed to help orient visitors to the park via educational programs, exhibits, and interpretive trails. Educational programs are available for school groups as well as the general public.

The Wild Center in Tupper Lake offers extensive exhibits about the natural history of the region including a 1,000 foot long series of elevated bridges that rise up over the forest on the Center's campus. Many of the exhibits are live and include native turtles, otter, birds, fish and porcupines. The Center, which is open year-round, has trails to a river and pond on its campus.

The Adirondack Museum contains extensive collections about the human settlement of the park.

Hiking and rock climbing

The 46 highest mountains in the Adirondack High Peaks, were thought to be over 4,000 feet (1,219 m) when climbed by brothers Robert and George Marshall between 1918 and 1924. Since that time, surveys have shown that four of these peaks—Blake Peak, Cliff Mountain, Nye Mountain and Couchsachraga Peak—are in fact just under 4,000 feet (1,219 m) elevation.

Some hikers try to climb all of the original 46 peaks, and there is a Forty Sixers club for those who have successfully done so. About 20 of the 46 mountains remain without marked trails.

Cliffs with rock climbing[18] and ice climbing routes are scattered throughout the park boundaries.

Watersports

The surface of many of the lakes lies at an elevation above 1,500 ft (457 m); their shores are usually rocky and irregular, and the wild scenery within their vicinity has made them very attractive to tourists. It is the site of the Adirondack Canoe Classic. Flatwater and whitewater canoeing and kayaking are very popular. Hundreds of lakes, ponds, and slow-moving streams link to provide routes ranging from under one mile (1.6 km) to weeklong treks.

Motorboating is formally restricted on only a few bodies of water.

Development and industry

Tourism in Old Forge, 1973

While the park does contain large areas of wilderness, some areas developed to a varying degree.

Census towns with more than 5,000 inhabitants include:

Interstate 87 or Northway, completed in the 1970s, runs north to south through the eastern edge of the park, connecting Montreal to Upstate New York. The park is traversed by military training routes of the Air National Guard.

There are six business parks in Essex County of which two have certified shovel ready sites. There is also two in Franklin County. There are many maple syrup producers, and their work is documented at the American Maple Museum at Croghan.

Although many Colleges and Universities programs in the Adirondack Park, and some have permanent facilities, the only four-year college or university is Paul Smith's College.

Railways

Railways were used extensively from about 1871 to the 1930s for passenger transport and freight. Passenger transport was supplemented by stagecoaches. Rail operators included Chateauguay Railroad,[19] The Adirondack Railway, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, Lake Champlain Transportation Company, The New York Central Railroad, Northern Adirondack Railroad Company, Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad, New York and Ottawa Railway, Mohawk and Malone Railway, Fulton Chain Railway. An early railway connected Saratoga Springs, North Creek,[20] Plattsburgh, the Clinton Correctional Facility, Loon Lake, Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, Moira, St. Regis Falls, Santa Clara, Brandon, Tupper Lake, Thendara, Old Forge, and Lake Clear. In 1920 there were 10 scheduled passenger train stops in Big Moose.

Starting in the 1930s people began to use automobiles rather than the train. Freight service to and from the Adirondacks also declined after World War II. The Penn Central Transportation Company, successor to the New York Central, continued freight service between New York City and Lake Placid until 1972. The Saratoga and North Creek Railway operates one train daily in each direction from Saratoga Springs to North creek over the route of the former Adirondack Railway. Trains run Saturday and Sunday in May and June, and Friday through Tuesday from July through October.[21] The Adirondack Scenic Railroad operates excursion trails between Utica and Lake Placid with stations in Holland Patent, Remsen, Saranac Lake, and Lake Placid.[22]

Architectural heritage

Azure Mountain Fire Observation Station

There is an Adirondack architectural style that relates to the rugged style associated with the Great Camps. The builders of these camps used native building materials and sited their buildings within an irregular wooded landscape. These camps for the wealthy were built to provide a primitive, rustic appearance while avoiding the problems of in-shipping materials from elsewhere.

Fire towers

In 1903 and 1908 fires consumed nearly 1 million acres (400,000 hectares) of forest. In 1909, the first Adirondack fire lookout tower, made of logs, was erected on Mount Morris and many others were built over the next several years. From 1916 steel towers were built. At one time or another, there have been fire towers at 57 locations in today’s Adirondack Park. The system worked for about 60 years, but has since been replaced by other technologies. Today 34 towers survive in the region and many have been restored and are accessible to the public.[23] Some in the Adirondack Forest Preserve have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including those on the following mountains: Arab, Azure, Blue, Hadley, Kane, Loon Lake, Poke-O-Moonshine, St. Regis, Snowy, and Wakely.[1][24]

The Adirondack Mountain Club’s Fire Tower Challenge allows those that have completed the challenge to earn a patch for visiting 18 of 23 listed fire tower summits inside the Adirondack Park plus all five in the Catskills.

Industrial

McIntyre Furnace & McNaughton Cottage: an 1853 blast furnace, the 1832 McNaughton Cottage, the remains of the Tahawus Club era buildings, and the early mining-related sites.[25]

Ecclesiastical

St. Regis Presbyterian church: designed by prolific Saranac Lake architect William L. Coulter and built on land donated by Paul Smith. Construction funds came from donations from the congregation, which was largely made up of summer residents. It served as a church from 1899 to 2010.[26]

Infrastructure

The Bow Bridge: The Bow Bridge in Hadley is one of only two parabolic or lenticular truss bridges in the region and one of only about 50 remaining in the country. It was built over the Sacandaga River by the Berlin Iron Bridge Co. in 1885.[26]

Jay Covered Bridge over the Ausable River.[26]

The AuSable Chasm Bridge.

Residential & leisure

Twig work at Camp Topridge

The Adirondack lean-to is a three sided log shelter.

Saranac Village at Will Rogers: a Tudor Revival style retirement community, was constructed in 1930 as a tuberculosis treatment facility for vaudeville performers. Due to the subsequent decline of vaudeville performers, and an eventual cure for tuberculosis, its doors closed in 1975. After sitting unused for twenty years, it was bought in 1998 by the Alpine Adirondack Association, LLC and reopened in January 2000 as a retirement community.[26]

Camp Santanoni was once a private estate of approximately 13,000 acres (53 km²), and now is the property of the state, at Newcomb. It was a residential complex of about 45 buildings. Now a National Historic Landmark, this is one of the earliest examples of the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. At the time of completion in 1893, Camp Santanoni was regarded as the grandest of all such Adirondack camps.[26]

Wellscroft, at Upper Jay, is a Tudor Revival–style summer estate home. It is a long,  2 1⁄2-story, building with several projecting bays, porches, gables and dormers, a porte cochere and a service wing. The rear facade features a large semi-circular projection. The first-story exterior is faced in native fieldstone. The interior features a number of Arts and Crafts style design features. Also on the property are a power house, fire house, gazebo, root cellar, reservoir, ruins of the caretaker's house and carriage house, and the remains of the landscaped grounds.[27] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.[1]

Prospect Point Camp: a Great Camp notable for its unusual chalets inspired by European hunting lodges.

References

  1. 1 2 3 National Park Service (2007-01-23). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. ↑ "Adirondack Park Agency Annual Report 2014" (PDF). APA. Retrieved 2015-07-01.
  3. ↑ Porter, William; Erickson, Jon; Whaley, Ross (2009). The Great Experiment in Cconservation: Voices from the Adirondack Park (1st ed.). Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. pp. xxvii–xxxiii. ISBN 978-0815632313.
  4. ↑ Terrie, Phillip G., Forever Wild, Environmental Aesthetics and the Adirondack Forest Preserve, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985, p. 98, ISBN 0-87722-380-7
  5. ↑ McMartin, Barbara (1994), "Introduction", in McMartin, Barbara; Long, James McMartin, Celebrating the Constitutional Protection of the Forest Preserve: 1894–1994, Silver Bay, New York: Symposium Celebrating the Constitutional Protection of the Forest Preserve, pp. 9–10
  6. ↑ Woodworth, Neil F. (1994), "Recreational Use of the Forest Preserve under the Forever Wild Clause", in McMartin, Barbara; Long, James McMartin, Celebrating the Constitutional Protection of the Forest Preserve: 1894–1994, Silver Bay, New York: Symposium Celebrating the Constitutional Protection of the Forest Preserve, pp. 27–37
  7. ↑ McMartin, Barbara (1994), The Great Forest of the Adirondacks, Utica, New York: North Country Books, ISBN 0-925168-29-7
  8. ↑ "Adirondack Park History". apa.ny.gov. Retrieved 2015-06-29.
  9. 1 2 Martin Espinoza (2008-09-18). "Conservancy Buys Slice of Adirondacks". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 25, 2009. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  10. ↑ "Adirondack Park Land Use Classification Statistics May 2014". APA. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  11. ↑ "About Us". Adirondack Council. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  12. ↑ "ARTICLE XIV New York State Constitution". Adirondack Wild. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  13. ↑ "Adirondack Landscape, USA". Wildlife Conservation Society. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  14. ↑ "History". Protect the Adirondacks!. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Omohundro, John; Harris, Glenn R. (2012). An Environmental History of New York's North Country: The Adirondack Mountains and the St. Lawrence River Valley: Case Studies and Neglected Topics (1 ed.). Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press. pp. 99–111. ISBN 978-0773426283.
  16. ↑ "SUNY-ESF: Adirondack Ecological Center". Esf.edu. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  17. ↑ Adirondack Park Agency - Maps & Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
  18. ↑ A Guide to Rock Climbing and Bouldering in the Adirondack Park, New York. Adirondack Rock. Retrieved on 2013-07-12.
  19. ↑ Cameron, Duncan (2013). "Adirondack Railways: Historic Engine of Change". Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies. 19. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  20. ↑ Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett (1878). History of Saratoga County, New York, with illustrations biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers. Philadelphia, PA: Everts & Ensign.
  21. ↑ "Spring, Summer, and Fall Regular Service operating between Saratoga and North Creek". Saratoga & North Creek Railway. Retrieved Sep 30, 2016.
  22. ↑ "Adirondack Scenic Railroad". Adirondack Scenic Railroad. Retrieved Sep 29, 2016.
  23. ↑ "Fire Towers". Adirondack Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  24. ↑ Fire Observation Stations of New York State Forest Preserve MPS
  25. ↑ "Finding Historic Gold in an Adirondack Iron Mine". Open Space Institute. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 "Saved". Adirondack Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  27. ↑ Steven C. Engelhart and Linda Garofalini (February 2003). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Wellscroft". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2010-07-14. See also: "Accompanying 51 photos".

External links

Coordinates: 44°00′N 74°20′W / 44.000°N 74.333°W / 44.000; -74.333

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