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.
(See Tupper History
Timeline)
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 Lakes first 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
(See Tupper
History Timeline)
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