Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2011 Doing History in the Adirondacks: Interpreting the Park, the People, and the Landscape Maria F. Reynolds Loyola University Chicago Recommended Citation Reynolds, Maria F., "Doing History in the Adirondacks: Interpreting the Park, the People, and the Landscape" (2011). Dissertations. Paper 76. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/76 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2011 Maria F. Reynolds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO DOING HISTORY IN THE ADIRONDACKS: INTERPRETING THE PARK, THE PEOPLE, AND THE LANDSCAPE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY JOINT PROGRAM IN AMERICAN HISTORY AND PUBLIC HISTORY BY MARIA F. REYNOLDS CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2011 Copyright by Maria F. Reynolds, 2011 All Rights Reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the support and encouraging comments from my advisor Dr. Theodore Karamanski. I truly appreciate how closely he looked over my chapter drafts and spoke to me about my topic with more interest and enthusiasm than I sometimes felt. I also want to thank my other committee members Dr. Patricia Mooney-Melvin and Dr. Elizabeth Fraterrigo for reading my dissertation and providing many thoughtful comments. My thanks to Dr. Mooney- Melvin who supported my graduate career at Loyola from day one and whose advice and friendship I treasure. I also want to thank Loyola for funding my graduate career with a Teaching Assistantship, Advanced Doctoral Fellowship, and Graduate Assistantship in the Loyola University Archives. My time in the University Archives working on the Loyola Oral History Project has been a Godsend and I feel grateful to have received funding to do a very interesting job. I want to especially thank Kathy Young, University Archivist and my supervisor, for having me as the Oral History graduate assistant for all of these years. The dissertation writing process is fundamentally isolating and I was very thankful for the feedback and fellowship from Mondays at Hamilton’s with the Loyola History Department Dissertation Writing Group. Members Elizabeth Hoffman Ransford, Thomas Greene, Andrew Donnelly, Ron Martin, Adam Shprintzen, Daniel O’Gorman, iii Dejan Kralj, Jason Myers, Jilana Ordman, and Sarah Doherty provided welcome fellowship during the last stages of my time in graduate school. I am also grateful for all of my fellow figure skaters at McFetridge Sports Center, especially those at the noon skate session who have been supportive and encouraging of more than just my skating ability. The ability to escape my frustration on the ice has been vital to my completion of this degree. Many thanks also to my coaches here in Chicago: Larry Holliday and Christian Wilson. I want to thank Dr. Michael Wilson for hiring me in 2005 to spend the summer at Great Camp Sagamore despite his reservations about the ability of my self-proclaimed introverted personality to conduct two-hour tours. My time at Sagamore was the basis for this project and the seed for the thoughts and ideas in the dissertation grew from my conversations with Michael. I am also forever grateful to the rest of the staff and interns I met at Sagamore who not only made it easy for me to return to the park to conduct research, but who also provided encouragement and support throughout. A and B, your friendship and thoughtful notes have meant a lot and I look fondly upon all of our Adirondack adventures. During the course of my travels throughout the Adirondacks I met countless wonderful volunteers and staff at museums. I am thankful to everyone who spoke with me about the park and life in the park. I was truly able to experience firsthand how a deep love and commitment to the park underlay all opinions no matter how much they are in conflict. Thank you to the force of nature that is the Adirondack Park. Every time iv I open the gate at Sagamore’s entrance, the smell of pine and the rushing outlet stream greet my senses and I realize there is no place I would rather be. Finally, I want to say just how blessed I feel to be part of such a wonderful family. Thanks to my grandparents, James and Edith Faery, who possess more unconditional love than I ever imagined. Thanks to my mom, Linda, and brother, Steven, for always supporting whatever I want to do. Although my father, Richard, died before I started graduate school, I am pretty sure he knew I was going to end up here. The vacations that the four of us took to historic places are a large reason I was attracted to history and, once I knew what it was, to public history. And to close, I want to thank Clement for not leaving me alone even when I kept telling him to… v To RJR TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES viii ABSTRACT xi INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING A STORIED LANDSCAPE 1 CHAPTER ONE: NATURE’S ASCENDANCY: THE ROMANTIC WILDERNESS OF THE ADIRONDACK PARK 24 CHAPTER TWO: WHITE ELEPHANTS NO MORE: THE PRESERVATION AND REUSE OF ADIRONDACK GREAT CAMPS 38 CHAPTER THREE: REINTERPRETING A FALSE DUALISM: FIRE TOWERS, RUINS, AND THE CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF ADIRONDACK LAND MANAGEMENT DECISIONS 106 CHAPTER FOUR: THE RUSTIC CRAFT: RUSTIC FURNITURE, ADIRONDACK CRAFTSPEOPLE, AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A REGIONAL STYLE 161 CHAPTER FIVE: GREENSCAPING THE PARK: REGIONAL MUSEUMS IN THE ADIRONDACK PARK 205 CHAPTER SIX: WHERE ART THOU ADIRONDACK?: LOCAL MUSEUMS IN THE ADIRONDACK PARK 248 CONCLUSION 294 APPENDIX A: MUSEUMS AND HISTORIC SITES IN THE ADIRONDACK PARK 300 BIBLIOGRAPHY 302 VITA 313 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. New York State Map 5 Figure 2. Adirondack Map 7 Figure 3. Thoreau quote at The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, NY 24 Figure 4. Diorama at the Forest Industries Exhibit Hall, Old Forge, NY 36 Figure 5. William West Durant at Camp Pine Knot, Raquette Lake, NY 45 Figure 6. Worker’s complex at Great Camp Sagamore, Raquette Lake, NY 58 Figure 7. Save Sagamore Poster, Raquette Lake, NY 60 Figure 8. Main Lodge at Camp Santanoni, Newcomb, NY 76 Figure 9. Farm Manager’s Cottage at Santanoni, Newcomb, NY 76 Figure 10. Sleeping Cabin at White Pine Camp, Paul Smiths, NY 86 Figure 11. White Pine Camp brochure, Paul Smiths, NY 91 Figure 12. Exhibit at Great Camp Sagamore, Raquette Lake, NY 100 Figure 13. Bald Mountain Fire Tower, Old Forge, NY 131 Figure 14. Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower, Keene, NY 140 Figure 15. Interpretive Panel at Bald Mountain Trailhead, Old Forge, NY 145 Figure 16. Breeched dam at Sagamore, Raquette Lake, NY 154 Figure 17. Ruins of Sagamore’s Hydroelectric Plant, Raquette Lake, NY 154 Figure 18. Example of a Westport Chair, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 171 Figure 19. Example of an Adirondack Chair, Raquette Lake, NY 171 viii Figure 20. Mosaic Twig Table from Sagamore, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 177 Figure 21. Rustic Settee from Camp Uncas, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 177 Figure 22. Ernest Stowe Dining Room Table and Chairs, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 180 Figure 23. Lee Fountain Rocking Chair, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 182 Figure 24. Corner cupboard from Camp Cedars, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 187 Figure 25. Bill Smith, Storyteller and Pack basket maker, Raquette Lake, NY 197 Figure 26. Roderick Nash Quote, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 205 Figure 27. Marion River Carry Railcar, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 215 Figure 28. Interpretive Panel at the Adirondack Museum’s Scenic Overlook, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 228 Figure 29. “The Great Outdoors” Exhibit, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 234 Figure 30. Glacial Exhibit at The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, NY 240 Figure 31. High Peaks Exhibit at The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, NY 240 Figure 32. The Wild Center and Greenleaf Pon, Tupper Lake, NY 242 Figure 33. “Return of the Wild” Exhibit Label, Tupper Lake, NY 245 Figure 34. Tree of Life Mural at the Minerva Historical Society, Olmsteadville, NY 262 Figure 35. Ironville Historical Marker, Ironville, NY 264 Figure 36. Fort Ticonderoga, Ticonderoga, NY 270 Figure 37. British Fort at Crown Point, Crown Point, NY 272 Figure 38. Fort William Henry, Lake George, NY 274 Figure 39. Dr. Goodsell’s Office at the Town of Webb Historical Association, Old Forge, NY 281 ix Figure 40. Exhibit Panel at Morehouse Historical Museum, Hoffmeister, NY 298 x ABSTRACT Occupying a large portion of Northern New York State, the Adirondack Park includes six million acres of public and private land that compromise over 85 % of all wilderness lands east of the Mississippi. Unique in many ways, the Adirondack Park remains a model for sustainable living and wilderness land management. This dissertation explores the way history is used to both complicate and enrich the relationship between humans and nature in the Adirondack Park. By analyzing historic preservation, cultural landscape management, material culture, and museums this project examines the way that Park history has been told through exhibits, public programs, tours, and commemorations. Chapters explore great camp preservation, the retention of cultural artifacts on state owned wilderness lands, the connection of the Adirondack rustic style to the land, and the increasing environmental focus of regional museums. Together these chapters provide an assessment of public history sites and exhibits in the park that reveals the close yet tenuous relationship between the people and the land.