A Brief History of the Tupper Lake
Village
and the Town of Tupper Lake
The Town of Tupper
Lake comprises 76,168 acres of rolling upland, originally covered with a
magnificent forest of mixed softwood, sprinkled liberally with palatial lakes,
winding rivers and sparkling brooks. Before the settlement of the village, one
of the more literate early visitors to Tupper Lake was S.H. Hammond, editor of
the Albany State Register. He talked about the beauty of the lake and the
plentiful wildlife and described the area known as Moody Marsh, as he saw it in
the summer of 1849, “a beautiful prairie stretching away, skirted by tall
trees. As you look upon it you can hardly believe that it is not a pleasant
meadow and you wonder where the farmhouse and all the cattle are”.
The first
scattering of white men were hunters, anglers and trappers.
These hearty souls penetrated to the Tupper Lake area soon after the end of the
American revolution. In 1850 a Maine outfit, called the Pomeroy Lumber Company,
was the first logging operation of record. They began logging off the virgin
pine and left as a souvenir the clearing that over looked Raquette Pond. They
also left behind it’s foreman William McLaughlin, who did very well selling off
building lots during the boom years of 1890 from the very same clearing.
Around midnight on
July 29, 1899 the most devastating fire to ever sweep through an Adirondack
community burnt 169 buildings to the ground. Undaunted by the loss, the spirited
pioneers rebuilt the village. Within a few years after the big fire, the village
was restored and back in business as usual.
With the first
logging ventures came the rush of settlers.
Other
sawmills were erected and dams were built along the Raquette River. Soon Tupper
Lake logs were feeding hungry mills as far away as Potsdam. For the next
century, logging would be the signature industry of Tupper Lake. The most famous
mill was the big Hurd Mill (at left) and once sawed over a million board feet of
lumber in one day, a world record for that time period..
As the logging
industry grew the railroad arrived. As the junction point for Hurd’s and Webb’s
railroad, downtown Tupper Lake became the Adirondacks leading rail center with a
sprawling freight shed and offices, extensive yard facilities, water towers,
coal chute and a roundhouse where upward of 40 men were kept busy on maintenance
work on
the locomotives operating over the Utica- Montreal and Tupper-Ottawa line. Today
efforts are being made to bring the railroad back to Tupper Lake.
Probably no single
factor ever contributed more significantly to the growth and economic stability
of Tupper Lake than the Sunmount Veterans Hospital. With an amazing display of
community spirit the growing village raised $20,000 dollars to purchase the 160
acre Hosley farm and then
offered it to the Federal Government for a $1. The offer was accepted on June
26, 1922. Ground was broken that summer with Tupper Lake mayor Joe Gokey
wielding the spade which turned the first sod.. On August 15, 1924 the new
hospital was dedicated with a fitting ceremony. An estimated 2,500 people
attended. Today Sunmount exist as a development center and is still a life blood
for the community.
Text & Images Courtesy of Jon Kopp