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Sacandaga Park -- Railroads and Roller Coasters
It began quietly enough with a cluster of white tents pitched on the west bank
of the Sacandaga River south of Northville, NY in the foothills of the
Adirondacks Here, in God’s own cathedral, the Methodists held their
services on crude wooden benches beneath the towering masts of the white pines. They
shared this meeting ground with the Women's Temperance Union and the Salvation
Army, never dreaming that the site where they worshipped would soon be one of
the grandest amusement parks the East coast would ever see.
Times were changing. The War Between the States was over. The
country was rolling with the breakneck speed of a runaway locomotive toward
prosperity and good times. Running between the Mohawk Valley and the
foothills of the Adirondacks, the Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville, or F. J.
& G. Railroad, was begun in 1867.
Every community, no matter how small, wanted the iron rails of commerce laid to
its door. The village of Northville, fifteen miles north of Gloversville,
65 miles northwest of Albany, was no exception. Bring your railroad to us,
they promised, and it will open up the Adirondacks. It was not to be.
The mortgage for the Gloversville and Northville Railroad was foreclosed and the
F. J. & G. line acquired the sixteen miles of roadbed.
But instead of abandoning the line, the men of the F.J. & G. asked
themselves a question. All across the country, other short line railroads
were opening their own amusement parks. Why not build one on the banks of
the Sacandaga River?
They began modestly with picnic grounds for hire, buying property as they went.
In 1888, the Adirondack Inn, a grand hotel in the best Victorian tradition, rose
majestically amidst the pines and tamaracks. The Inn, which could accommodate
250 guests, boasted an elevator, a rarity in Adirondack resorts. Cottages
immediately sprang up around her elegant skirts. Tourists in picture hats
and straw boaters began to flock to the park.
And then, one fateful day, the members of a German fraternal society hired the
picnic grounds and roared into the rustic arena with a baggage car stacked with
kegs of beer. Infuriated, the Methodists moved en masse to Round Lake.
The Adirondack Conference had fallen victim to a newer, wilder, louder age.
It wasn't long before disaster struck. On the night of May 8, 1898, all
but nine of the 120 flimsy, stick-built cottage burned to the ground within two
hours. Not even dynamite charges could check the balls of flame exploding
through the trees, but it was this fierce blaze that give birth to the Sacandaga
Park as most people remember it.
On the morning after the fire, Railroad Director Erastus Darling ordered the
smoking rubble cleared away and the property laid out in plots of 40 by 60 feet.
A complete water and sewer system was laid in. The F. J. & G.
transported lumber free to burned-out residents. They hired a landscape
artist named Chapman to beautify the picnic grounds and wooded paths.
Chapman also directed the construction of the miniature lakes, rustic bridges,
arbors and gardens that would grace the 157 acre property. An octagonal
bandstand was built in the center of a lagoon near the Adirondack Inn and a
dance pavilion constructed.
But railroad officials envisioned something grander than a beautifully
landscaped picnic area. They built a theater and a regulation nine-hole
golf course in comfortable proximity to the Inn. Although the Rustic
Theater at that time was little more than a crude stage with natural scenery for
a backdrop, and its seats benches clinging to the slope of the land, Keith
Proctor of the United Booking Company of New York brought such talents as Al
Jolson, Zazu Pitts and W.C. Fields to tread the boards.
On Sundays, the local Catholic congregation borrowed the stage for Mass.
Children from Northville used it for their school plays. Later, moving
pictures came to the Theater, which also hosted productions direct from
Broadway. E.W. Prouty and John Philip Sousa entertained the guests taking
their leisure at the Inn.
The Railroad then formed the Sacandaga Amusement Company and built a huge midway
from the main road to the bank of the river. In addition to the roller
coaster, the two carousels, the shooting gallery and the house of fun, the
bowling alley and the burro rides, there was also a kinescope theater in a
railroad car. For ten cents, the adventuresome could climb aboard and
watch the scenery flash by on the front screen while they were treated to a full
range of sound effects and a genuine rocking motion.
On a large island in the river, the railroad built another, larger picnic area
and in 1901, a grandstand and baseball diamond, which later became the home of
the New York State Baseball League. Each spring a bridge was erected between the
midway and Sport Island so patrons of the Park could either walk across or ride
the miniature train. There were boxing matches, wrestling bouts, and
extravagant Independence Day displays, featuring $5000 worth of fireworks and a
pageant depicting native Americans attacking a settlement.
For this spectacle, cabins were actually built on the field and the local Red
Men, dressed as warriors, would lay siege to the "village" with
flaming arrows. As the sham savages were about the scalp the settlers, a
bugle would sound and soldiers would march from the woods, firing volley after
volley until the warriors lay still beneath the colored floodlights.
In 1918, fire struck Sport Island, burning the grandstand and the miniature
train that was housed beneath it. They were never replaced. Instead,
in an eerie foreshadowing of the death of the Park, dams were built at either
side of the island to create a small lake for boating and bathing. Toboggan
slides called Shoot-the-Chutes were favorites of the more daring visitors.
Three more hotels were built to accommodate the enormous influx of visitors, who
numbered up to 90,000 a season in the Park's hey day. The Pines Hotel
stood near the midway, the Old Orchard Inn near the golf course, and High Rock
Lodge was perched on the hill to the west, overlooking the rest of the Park.
Built in 1901 by Reuben D. Buckingham, High Rock was a resort unto itself, with
its own stables, tennis courts, lush gardens and pleasant pathways winding
through the woods. All too soon, this elegant era came to an end, dealt a death blow by Henry
Ford's ubiquitous Model T. Vacationers everywhere abandoned the railroads
in favor of the individual freedom and mobility offered by the automobile.
Meantime, fire, always the bane of the Park, continued to ravage its
attractions, including the midway, which burned in 1912.In the end, though, it was water, not fire, that dealt the Park a blow from
which it would never recover. The Hudson River-Black River Regulating
Board condemned the property that formed the heart of the Park in 1926 in
preparation for the construction of the Sacandaga Reservoir. The railroad
brought suit, winning $1,727,696.55 in damages, but losing the midway, the
Pines, Sport Island, the skating rink and a number of cottages.
The midway
was put to the torch, but most of the Park, along with places like Benedict,
Osborn's Bridge, and most of Fish House, Day, and Batchelorville was drowned
beneath the waters of the Sacandaga Reservoir as it began to fill behind the new
Dam at Conklingville. The remains of the Park struggled on, but fire continued to plague the resort
once known as the "Coney Island of the North". The cottages on
Osborne Road burned in 1939,
High Rock in 1951. The Rustic Theater burned
to the ground four years later after a matinee performance of Guys and Dolls. The theater was rebuilt as the Sacandaga Summer Theater, which opened to the
same musical, but although it could boast performances by the likes of Charlton
Heston and Vivian Vance in productions such as Li'l Abner, West Side Story, and
Pink Stockings, the theater succumbed to financial troubles and was torn down.
Heeswijk, the splendid summer home of the owner of the F. J. & G, burned in
1964; only the stone work and the elaborate play house he built for his daughter
was left standing. And finally, on
the night of September 8, 1975, the grand lady herself, the Adirondack Inn, was
consumed in a violent conflagration, a fiery end to the final, poignant chapter
on a lively, long-gone age.
By permission of Adele S. Hodlin copyright
1975, all
rights reserved.
Photos by Rev Daniel Hodlin copyright 1975, all
rights reserved. |
