Everything about Lake George New York totally explained
Lake George, nicknamed the
Queen of American Lakes, is a long, narrow
lake at the southeast base of the
Adirondack Mountains, northern
New York,
U.S. The lake extends about 32.2 miles (54 km) on a north-south axis and varies from 1 to 3 miles (1.7 to 5 km) in width.
Lake George drains into
Lake Champlain to its north through a short stream (La Chute River) with many falls and rapids, dropping about 230 feet (70 meters) in its 3½-mile (6 km) course. Ultimately the water flows into the
St. Lawrence River and then into the
Atlantic Ocean. The original name in
Iroquois was said to be
Andiatarocte, the
lake shut in and was named by the French
Lac du Saint-Sacrement, (
Lake of the Holy Sacrament).
The
Village of Lake George is located at the south end of Lake George and the unincorporated village of
Ticonderoga is at the northern end. The area is a well-known resort center and
summer colony.
There are several towns and villages on the shore of the lake. The southern most, Lake George village, is especially popular with tourists. To the north is
Bolton Landing, substantially quieter and more affluent. Bolton houses the largest of the Lake's resorts, the
Sagamore Hotel. The center of Bolton lies on Bolton Bay, as does Green Island (Sagamore Island). At the north end of the lake are Silver Bay,
Hague and
Huletts Landing.
Geography
Lake George is located in the Adirondack Park and mountain range. Notable landforms include Anthony's Nose,
Deer's Leap,
Roger's Rock, the
Indian Kettles, Diver's Rock (a 15ft jump into the lake), and Double-Diver's (a 30ft jump). Some of the mountains include Tongue Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, Prospect Mountain, Shelving Rock, Pilot Knob, and
Black Mountain. Some of the more famous bays are
Silver Bay, Kattskill Bay, Northwest Bay, Basin Bay and
Oneida Bay.
The lake is distinguished by "The Narrows," an island-filled narrow section (approximately five miles long) that's bordered on the west by Tongue Mountain and the east by Black Mountain. In all, Lake George is home to approximately 165 islands, most of them state owned. They range from the car-sized Skipper's Jib to larger Vicar's and Long Island. Camping permits are attainable for the larger portion of islands. Recently, an island has been renamed "Cell Phone Island" due to its ability to receive wireless signals. Another island titled "Seagull Island" started out as a small rock which was then increased in size by hundreds of layers of seagull droppings.
History
The first European visitor to the area,
Samuel de Champlain, noted the lake in his journal on
July 3,
1609, but didn't name it. In
1646, the missionary
Isaac Jogues named it Lac du Saint-Sacrement, and the exit stream as the river La Chute (
the fall).
On
August 28,
1755, Sir
William Johnson led British colonial forces to occupy the area in the
French and Indian War. He renamed the lake as Lake George for King
George II and built a protecting fortification at its southern end. The fort was named
Fort William Henry for the King's grandson
Prince William Henry, a younger brother of the later King
George III. On
September 8, 1755 the
Battle of Lake George was fought between the forces of Britain and France.
In September, the French responded by beginning construction of Fort Carillon, later called
Fort Ticonderoga, on a point where La Chute enters Lake Champlain. These fortifications controlled the easy water route between
Canada and Colonial
New York.
On March 13, 1758, an attempted
attack on that fort by irregular forces lead by
Robert Rogers was one of the most daring raids of that war. The unorthodox (to Europeans) tactics of
Rogers' Rangers are seen as the inspiring the later creation of similar
special forces in later conflicts — including the
United States Army Rangers.
Lake George’s key position on the Montreal-New York water route made possession of the forts at either end — particularly Ticonderoga — strategically crucial during the American Revolution.
In 1775, in a daring winter assault, American troops had captured the fort and, with it, the British artillery. The Americans, led by Colonel
Henry Knox transported the cannons by sledge over the frozen lake, across the
Berkshire Mountains, arriving in Boston on the 24th of January 1776. The unexpected arrival of the captured cannons in Boston broke the stalemate between the British forces, commanded by General Gage, who held the city and General
George Washington’s troops who were laying
siege to it. After Washington’s forces managed to place the cannons on
Dorchester Heights, the British abandoned the city.
Later in the war, British General Burgoyne’s decision to bypass the easy water route to the
Hudson River that Lake George offered and, instead, attempt to reach the Hudson though the marshes and forests at the southern end of
Lake Champlain led to the British defeat at
Saratoga.
On May 31, 1791, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to his daughter, "Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony."
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Lake George was a common spot sought out by well known artists including
E. Charlton Fortune and
Frank Vincent DuMond.
Tourist destination
At one time, Lake George was one of the nation's first elite tourist destinations. Conveniently situated on the rail line halfway between New York City and Montreal, the lake became a magnet for the era's rich and famous by the late 19th and early 20th century.
Tourists from all over North America and Europe flocked to Lake George and the surrounding majestic Adirondack Mountains. By the turn of the 19th century Lake George was equaled only by
Newport,
Saratoga and
the Hamptons as a summer enclave for America's aristocracy. Members of the Roosevelt, van Rensselaer, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Whitney families visited its shores. The Fort William Henry Hotel, in what is now Lake George Village, and
The Sagamore in
Bolton Landing were popular spots for those who could afford a "vacation", something that was only then becoming available to a privileged few. The wealthiest of the period were more likely to stay with their peers at their private country estates.
Created as part of several other leadership training facilities located throughout the nation, the
Silver Bay YMCA
on Lake George was constructed in 1900. It has since evolved into a summer family camp, serving several hundred organizations and tourists every summer.
Millionaire's Row
Millionaire's Row was the haunt of Lake George's richest summer residents. A stretch of Bolton Road (now Lake Shore Drive) on the west side of the lake was where the aristocrats built their large and elegant mansions. Millionaire's Row was inhabited in the summer months by such notables as
Spencer Trask, the famous Wall Street financier, and
Robert Pitcairn, friend of
Andrew Carnegie (and one of the world's richest men). The palatial homes of Millionaire's Row typically had dozens of bedrooms and were sometimes in excess of 20,000 square feet. Ironically, they were coyly called "cottages" by their owners in a vain attempt at being unpretentious. These grand houses, with every modern comfort and convenience, were in marked contrast to the more rustic summer "camps" built by other wealthy Adirondack summer residents such as
William Durant and
John D. Rockefeller. Instead of log and timber construction such as Durant's famous
Uncus Lodge near
Raquette Lake, the houses of Millionaire's Row were huge stone and masonry structures in the Tudor, Georgian, and
Italianate styles. In the 1920s, Pitcairn's estate, which is now a condominium and marina, even had a landing pad for an "
auto gyro", predecessor of the modern helicopter. Unlike their contemporaries in Newport and The Hamptons which were built on tiny pieces of land, the cottages of Millionaire's row were mansions in the true sense of the word. They were often built on hundreds of acres of pristine lakeside wilderness.
With the changing economic climate and the introduction of income tax, the mansions of Millionaire's Row had begun to become unaffordable by the 1930s. By the 1950s, with the advent of affordable auto and air travel, Lake George became more attractive to the growing middle class and less so to the "jet set". Most of the mansions of Millionaire's Row were torn down or turned into hotels and restaurants. Among the surviving remnants are the
Sagamore, as well as three Millionaire's Row "cottages": Melody Manor, Sun Castle, and Green Harbor Mansion.
The
Lake George Stakes, a
Grade III race on turf for three-year-old
Thoroughbred fillies is run at the
Saratoga Race Course each year. The race is named for this lake.
Ethan Allen accident
On
October 2,
2005, at 2:55 p.m., the
Ethan Allen, a 40-foot glass-enclosed tourist boat carrying 47 passengers and operated by Shoreline Cruises, capsized on the lake. According to reports from a local newspaper, 20 people (mostly senior citizens) died when the boat capsized during calm weather, possibly due to the wake from passing boats.
Initial reports indicated that the tour group was from Canada, but these reports were later found to be incorrect. It was later determined that the group was from the
Trenton,
Michigan, area on a weeklong fall trip along the East Coast by bus and rail, organized by Trenton's parks and recreation department and arranged through a Canadian company. Police said they've never seen a disaster of this magnitude on the lake. The captain survived and cooperated with police.
The
National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the incident revealed that, although the boat was rated to carry 50 people when it was manufactured in 1966, subsequent alterations to the boat's design had greatly reduced its stability. At the time of the accident, the boat should have been rated to carry no more than 14 passengers. On
February 5 2007, the captain, Richard Paris, and the company that owned the boat, Shoreline Cruises, were indicted for only having one crew member aboard the boat. More serious charges were not filed because neither the captain nor the owners were aware they were violating safety standards.
Image gallery
Image:KensettJohnFLakeGeorge.jpg|Lake George, by John F. Kensett, Hudson River School
Image:Lake George 1.jpg|View from Bolton Landing
Image:Southern_lake_george.JPG|View of southern end of Lake George.
Image:Lake George 4-13-06 022.jpg
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