Getting There

The steamboat landing on South Inlet, ca. 1900.

Getting There

By Robert Engel

Great Camp Sagamore’s Historian

Creating transportation networks into undeveloped regions was Dr. Thomas Clark Durant’s life’s work. He oversaw the building of the eastern half of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. In the 1870s, he tried but failed to build a railroad diagonally northwest across the Adirondacks. He successfully created an audacious transportation system to his vast wooded acreage that surrounded Raquette Lake. It involved stagecoaches, steamboats, channel dredging, and a railroad less than a mile long.

The life’s work of Thomas’ son, William West Durant, was to build fine rustic camp complexes for wealthy buyers on the land he inherited around Raquette Lake. Like his father, William also met transportation challenges in creative ways.

In the early 1890s, William had his eye on three idyllic lakes located a few miles south of Raquette. He saw them as backdrops for camps that would be his masterpieces. At the time, no roads led to these lakes. Raquette Lake’s South Inlet would be the gateway.

William built a handsome and functional steamboat landing upstream at the head of the South Inlet, where the rapids begin and boats can go no further. From there, he constructed a thin carriage road past Shedd Lake (soon to be renamed Sagamore Lake) and Mohegan Lake (where he was building Camp Uncas). I imagine that the little road was especially smooth for the far backcountry.

Map detail, 1904. The steamboat landing is here called “Camp.” The old road is indicated. Prior to the map’s publication, Shedd Lake was renamed Sagamore Lake.

To assure potential buyers that the land was secure from trespassers, Durant had a log boom constructed where South Inlet flows into Raquette (where Rte. 28 crosses today). When his barrier was repeatedly breached, he posted armed guards to convince the locals that access was restricted.

For years, local residents paddled the South Inlet to access thousands of acres of trout streams, lakes, and big game. People who thought of themselves as sportsmen, guides, or just out to provide for their families, were suddenly being called poachers. The lands and waters south of Raquette Lake were off-limits.

People who had known Durant for years were furious. His father had acquired ownership of the land in the late 1860s for pennies an acre by convincing Albany politicians that his proposed railroad would create a growing tax base. Until that happened, the state powerbase regarded these lands as valueless. The early Adirondackers who quietly struggled to make lives in the wilderness questioned the Durants' legitimacy to arbitrarily deny them these familiar places.

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In 1900, a railroad spur came in from Eagle Bay on Fourth Lake to Raquette Lake. The present village grew up around the station. Durant sold his camp properties to J.P. Morgan (Uncas) and Alfred Gwynn Vanderbilt (Sagamore), who arrived in opulent private train cars.

A new carriage road was constructed from the village to the camps, the same road we use today. Travelers who arrived by train or by steamboat via Blue Mountain Lake could be picked up at Raquette Lake village and whisked off to any of the three camps by the new road. But the owners also decided to keep up the South Inlet route.

The new road might have been less comfortable, with bumpy stretches of cedar log corduroy, and it was definitely less picturesque than the old road. But it was also much faster. For Alfred Vanderbilt, who happened to be the world’s best and fastest coach driver (really, he won competitions), Sagamore via the new road was no more than half an hour from the train station. By South Inlet, camp was another three hours away.

The South Inlet route was maintained until the 1930s. A photo below shows one of Alfred Vanderbilt’s sons with a guest at the steamboat landing about three decades after the new road was built.

Look closely at the map above – the landing (referred to as “Camp”) was located just outside the Sagamore property line. Therefore, no single owner controlled its operation. The road from the landing to the camps began by crossing Sagamore property. The initial sales agreements must have included rights-of-way for the other owners.

The landing was a typical Durant building, covered in cedar bark secured by thin half-log battens. Cedar posts and trestles created a protected gallery where passengers could wait for the boat. The largest section was a closed bay to house the boat. It’s now difficult to find any physical evidence that the building was ever there.

The steamboat landing on South Inlet, ca. 1900. Note steps for entering a carriage.

The steamboat landing on South Inlet, ca. 1933, with either Alfred II or George Vanderbilt picking up or dropping off a friend.

Today, the old road from the steamboat landing to Sagamore runs entirely on state land. It’s incorporated into parts of today’s Powerhouse, Big Slope, and Lake Trails, all situated within the Historic Great Camps Special Management Area. The designation was given to the area in 2011 to help maintain and promote these beautiful historic tails.

We’d love to welcome guests next year who arrive at Great Camp Sagamore having paddled the South Inlet and walked the trails that compose the old road. If you do that, stop at the lookout point along the Lake Trail for a spectacular view across the lake to camp, just as guests would have done 120 years ago. Then, you can tell us why the camp owners maintained Durant’s old route long after it was actually needed.

A section of the Lake Trail and Sagamore Lake, part of Durant’s old road.