The History of the Adirondacks
The history of the Adirondack Mountains is a long one. Their bedrock
was formed an estimated 1.2 billion years ago. The High Peaks region of the
Adirondacks is composed mainly of a rock known as anorthosite which is
rarely found on earth, but is common on the Moon. This rock and others have
proven virtually indestructible and have survived four separate Ice Ages and
their respective glaciers, making the Adirondacks the oldest geological
formation in North America. Despite their beauty, the Adirondacks were never
permanently settled by the two Native American tribes that inhabited central
New York, the Iroquois and Algonquin. They used the mountains mainly for
hunting and war. The word "Adirondack" actually means "those
who eat trees" in the language of the Iroquois; it is assumed by many
to be a pejorative term used to describe the Algonquins that settled to the
North (there are also theories that the term refers to beavers).
The
first European to ever see the region was the Frenchman Jacques Cartier, in
1535 (he noticed highlands while looking South from Montreal, Canada).
Another Frenchman, Samuel D. Champlain, was the first European to set foot
in the region. In 1609 he travelled South with a party of Algonquins and two
Frenchmen through the lake that now bears his name. Eventually, on July 30,
1609, the group encountered the Iroquois, and a small scuffle ensued. After
watching two of their Chiefs shot dead by Champlain's arquebus, a
small handgun, the Iroquois fled. So began the hatred of the French by the
Iroquois, which would eventually lead to an alliance between the British and
the Iroquois. However, the Adirondacks would not be the stage for these
inevitable confrontations: for the next three centuries, the region stayed
nearly free from inhabitants.
That changed in 1850 when the region was exploited for its timber resources,
making New York the #1 lumber-producing state in the U.S. In the years after
the Civil War, both vacationers and tuberculosis patients flooded the
region. These people all wanted to see the Adirondacks protected, and in
1885 the state responded by creating the Adirondack Forest Preserve. The
Adirondack Park was established in 1892, and it included the Forest Preserve
land and all the privately owned land within its border. This boundary was
known as the "Blue Line," because it appeared in blue on early New York
State maps. In 1894 the citizens of New York State voted to insert Article
XIV, Section I, the "forever wild" clause which states "the
lands now or hereafter acquired, constituting the Forest Preserve as now
fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands," into their
state constitution, making the Adirondack Forest Preserve the only lands in
the United States with constitutional protection. This addition to the state
constitution was necessary because of repeated abuses to the original Forest
Preserve law.
On October 11, 1892, the Mohawk and Malone Railroad, which would
eventually become the Adirondack Division of the New York Central Railroad,
was completed. This paved the way for the tourism that would take over as
the #1 source of income for the region in the 1920's. The Forest Preserve
law was finally taking its toll on the lumber industry. During the early
1900's, forest fires destroyed much of the Adirondack woodlands. The effects
of these fires are still visible in many areas today. The Third Winter
Olympic Games were held in Lake Placid in the High Peaks region in 1932, and
the Thirteenth Winter Games were held there again in 1980. The Adirondack
Park Agency, which still exists today, was created in 1973 to manage the
increasing amount of tourists (now numbering in the millions) that descend
on the region annually. Today the amount of Forest Preserve land has jumped
from the original 681,374 acres to its present 2.5 million acres (3,900
square miles). Intertwined with the Forest Preserve land is 3.5 million
acres (5,475 square miles) of privately-owned land, bringing the total area
within the Blue Line to 6 million acres (9,375 square miles).