Roads, Streets and Avenues

Brick paving still underlies many village streets. This brick work was revealed during repaving of Main Street and Broadway in 2011. Dwyers' Drug Store 1936, during the paving of Broadway. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, April 27, 2002 Paving of Saranac Lake's streets began in 1905 when brick paving was put down by Italian immigrants, according to a November 14, 1969 story in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.  A.L. Donaldson wrote that the main streets of Saranac Lake were paved by 1921. ¹Harry Hull was the village engineer responsible for much of the paving work.

Malone Palladium, June 22, 1905

Paving at the junction of Main Street and Broadway.
Courtesy of Jim HotalingThe contract for building the macadamized road in the town of Brighton has been awarded to Geo. Williams, of Saranac Lake, and he will commence work at once. The road will be about six miles long and the price to be paid is $4,000. When this contract is completed Brighton will undoubtedly have the best roads of any town in the county.

Elizabethtown Post, April 29, 1909

Dowers Brothers of Ballston Spa have secured the contract to lay sewers, construct brick pavements and macadam roads at Saranac Lake. The contract amounts to $142,000.

Baldwinville Gazette and Farmers' Journal, December 14, 1911

SLEIGHING ENDS IN MOUNTAINS

The prolonged thaw of the last few  days has caused a condition unprecedented in the memory of the oldest  Adirondack dweller in that sleighing  time broken up at practically the  middle of winter. Saturday and  Sunday drivers of business and pleasure rigs were forced to revert to  wheels.

The Adirondack winter  starts about November 1, and by the  tenth or twelfth of the month a fine  bottom of ice and snow has formed  on the roads, to remain over periods  varying from 120 to 150 days. ''Bill'"  Kelsey, guide and trapper, says that  in his sixty years of Adirondack  experience he has never before known  sleighing, once it has started, to  break up until spring.

Sunday night the bare brick of the  paving was visible on streets at  Saranac Lake, while the twelve  inches of packed snow on the country  roads in the mountains had completely  disappeared. Sleighing for the winter  was thought to have opened November  14, when the stage line, operated  between Lake Placid and Cascade,  officially discarded wheels for runners. The wheels are now working  again.

Lake Placid News, November 30, 1923

HENNEY'S PAVING JOB MOVING ALONG FAST

The Adirondack Enterprise has the following to say about the progress of the paving work in Saranac Lake, the contract for which was awarded to D. W. Henney of Lake Placid:

The new crosstown paved street link has just been opened with the completion of the new paving on Pine and Helen streets, carried out jointly by the village of Saranac Lake, and the towns of North Elba and St. Armand. Far more rapid progress was made than had been expected.

This new route turns off Bloomingdale avenue on Pine street, over Helen street hill to Church street, and by way of Church street to River street.

The portions paved by the village and a part of the contract awarded early this fall to D. W. Henney of Lake Placid. He now has the pavement on Margaret street to do to complete his contract. All the work being done is of asphalt macadam.

On Helen street the village paved from Franklin avenue to Pine street, the section from Franklin avenue to Church street having been completed last spring in cement concrete so that now all of Helen street is paved. Concrete curbs the whole length and in places new concrete sidewalks have been placed. New storm sewers and catch basins were also constructed.

On Pine street the village pavement extends from Helen street to the Delaware & Hudson tracks. Between the tracks and the bridge, the work was done by the town of North Elba, which town also constructed the strip between the bridge and Bloomingdale avenue. The latter section was paid for by the town of St. Armand, in which it is located. North Elba also paved the short section of [several words illegible] to the tracks.

At a recent meeting of the village board of trustees, a vote of thanks was extended to both towns, communicated to them thru Village Clerk Seaver A. Miller.

A plan is now under consideration to secure a connection from Pine street to Main street to eliminate the double railroad crossing. The railroad owns a right of way along the tracks between these two streets, and it is believed an easement can be arranged to permit the village to improve this strip.

Lake Placid News, November 2, 1923

SNOW PLOW AT SARANAC

The Enterprise announces that at a town board meeting last week it was decided that highways in the town of Harrietstown will be kept open to traffic this winter.

New machinery, including a five-ton tractor and a snow-plow with a 24-foot sweep, is being purchased for this purpose and will be placed in use this year.

The investment in machines is not expected to materially increase the town's expenditures, as the board anticipates a substantial saving to be brought about by their use.

Footnotes

1.  Alfred L. Donaldson, A History of the Adirondacks, New York: The Century Co., 1921, p. 235. (reprinted by Purple Mountain Press, Fleischmanns, NY, 1992)