History, Natural History & the Arts
Tupper Arts and the CNY Home Improvements crew has been building, reinforcing, and renovating the Tupper Lake Arts Center, with a grand unveiling planned for early June.
The organization is also hoping to use some of the village’s recently awarded $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant money to purchase and renovate the neighboring State Theater. [Read more…] about Tupper Arts Eyes State Theater For Arts Center
The St. Lawrence & Adirondack Railroad, also known as the Mohawk & Malone – eventually owned by the New York Central and called the Adirondack Line or the Adirondack Railroad ran directly through the Adirondacks from Herkimer (near Utica) to Malone connecting the rail lines along the Mohawk River to the Main Trunk Line running into Montreal. The line is often attributed to William Seward Webb, but it was the men who actually built the line that are the subject of this essay.
On March 29, 1892 a Boston Globe article titled “Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks” reported that Utica “resembled Washington during war times, hundreds of penniless and destitute Negroes are camped out tonight in the temporary places of shelter given them, and the citizens of Utica are consulting as to the best means of returning them to their homes.”
The Globe told readers that all night, “runaway slaves” had been coming into town. One hundred and fifty of them, mostly black laborers from the Deep South, but some recently arrived European immigrants as well. [Read more…] about “Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks”: Building the Adirondack Railroad
The New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Transportation (DOT), in cooperation with the Office of General Services (OGS), have announced the completion of the transfer of jurisdiction for a 34-mile segment of the Remsen-Lake Placid Travel Corridor. [Read more…] about Adirondack Rail Trail Design & Construction Starting
The Adirondacks in Northern New York covers approximately 5,000 square miles. Widely known for its natural beauty, recreation opportunities and tourism, it may surprise many of those travelers to learn that the Adirondacks’ trails and amenities are intrinsically connected to New York’s carceral history.
In A Prison In the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York’s North Country (Univ. of Mass. Press, 2020), Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr. traces the planning, construction, and operation of penitentiaries in five Adirondack communities – Dannemora, Ray Brook, Gabriels, Lyon Mountain, and Tupper Lake – between 1840 and the early 2010s to show the intersections between the environment and mass incarceration.
Hall’s own personal history adds an interesting aspect to his narrative. His father worked for the New York prison system from 1973 to 1998, mostly at the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. He states that “the rhythms of the prison system became natural to our family, just as they did for so many other families in towns and villages across the Adirondacks.” [Read more…] about Prison In the Woods: Environment & Incarceration in Northern NY
In the motor toboggan era – the time before the advent of the modern snowmobiles we know today – motor sleds had been too slow for racing excitement. As a result they remained strictly utilitarian vehicles racing only occasionally for promotional purposes. Motor toboggan and later snowmobile maker Polaris traveled each year at the end of the 1950s to trapper festivals at The Pas, Manitoba where they helped organize ad hoc races.
“We tried to rig them a little bit so we had a zig-zag effect,” David Johnson said, remembering one of the first informal races, “one guy ahead, and then the other, and so on, at a terrific speed of about 20 miles per hour.” In February 1959, Johnson won the first organized men’s race on an oval at The Pas and in 1960, the first cross-country race was held there. [Read more…] about A History of Snowmobile Racing in New York State
Northern New York Audubon and Raquette River Brewing have partnered to create a one-of-a-kind beer. On December 11, 2021 the brand new Spruce Tip IPA will be launched at Raquette River Brewing’s Tupper Lake property.
The label for the beer can will feature one of the Adirondack region’s most iconic species: the Spruce Grouse. [Read more…] about Audubon, Raquette River Brewing Partner With On New Beer
When world leaders convene in Scotland for critical climate change negotiations later this month, The Wild Center’s Youth Climate Program will be there.
The Tupper Lake, NY organization is sending a nine-person delegation to Glasgow for COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties. The Wild Center’s delegates will have a front-row seat as representatives from 197 countries seek solutions to mitigate ongoing effects of climate change. [Read more…] about Wild Center Sending Delegation to U.N. Climate Talks
ADK Bark in the Park, a new event in Tupper Lake, NY, will feature a low-cost microchipping clinic, pet walk and dog-friendly ice cream social on Sunday, August 22nd. [Read more…] about Tupper Lake Dog Event, Microchipping, Fundraiser Set for Sunday
The New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) has begun tearing up the former NY Central Adirondack Division tracks connecting Lake Placid, Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, part of a $1.9 million State project to build a rail trial suitable for use by bicyclists and snowmobilers.
The 34-mile rail corridor being removed was key to a once-thriving 119-mile railroad which operated almost continuously from 1892 until 1972, first as the Mohawk & Malone, and then by the New York Central starting in 1913. [Read more…] about Former NY Central Adirondack Division Rails Being Removed
In 1854, Samuel H. Hammond, a prominent attorney, newspaper writer and editor, State Senator and sportsman, wrote in Hills, Lakes, and Forest Streams: or A Tramp in the Chateaugay Woods (1854) about a sporting trip with his guide to Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks.
Hammond described a world that was considerably different than today, thanks to logging, blasting, damming, and flooding. He wrote in his diary: [Read more…] about Extinction: Passenger Pigeons Once Darkened The Skies