The Veterans Hospital
Medical science labeled it tuberculosis but it was also known as the White Plague.
For many years, it was considered an incurable, unpreventable, inherited disease.
Its victims were doomed to die, the sooner the better. Some hope for treating
and surviving the disease occurred when Dr. Edward Trudeau, who himself had
gone to the Adirondacks expecting to die from tuberculosis, found that a cure
regime of rest, fresh air and exercise could, in many cases, arrest the dreaded
disease.
Dr. Trudeau later found that the climate was not as important as how he lived –under careful regulation of air, food, rest and exercise. In other words, while Dr. Trudeau felt that the Adirondacks had some special virtue for the sick with its large amounts of ozone in the air (produced by the woods) and the resinous odors from the evergreens, and a strict regime had to be followed. The best way for that to happen was a sanitarium where the fresh-air therapy, as it came to be known, could be supervised.
Many of Dr. Trudeau’s patients were doctors who stayed on in Saranac Lake and opened boarding houses exclusively for pulmonary patients, and the community developed a large sanatoria industry.
By 1920, more than 150 such facilities, with room for four to 50 patients each, housed 2,000 patients in the village. The big-screened porch became a feature of Saranac Lake architecture and can readily be seen today, especially along Park Avenue.
I provide this background so readers can better understand why Saranac Lake reportedly rejected the offer of building a veterans hospital, as noted in the last Transitions column.
Here is what William Chapman White had to say on page 176 of his regional study, Adirondack Country: “A fateful decision for the future of Saranac Lake was made in the village. The Veterans Administration proposed building a five hundred-bed hospital just outside the village. For various reasons, some logical and some fearful, the influential doctors prevailed on the Veterans Administration to build that sanatorium elsewhere. It was built eighteen miles down the road at Tupper Lake, where Sunmount Hospital, with a payroll of four hundred and ninety, has been an important factor in the economic life of that town. For that decision many of townspeople never forgave the doctors, no matter how well reasoned their arguments.”
With Saranac Lake out of the running, Tupper’s chances to be approved as the site for the veterans hospital improved tremendously. We should be mindful, however, that 114 northern New York counties were eligible. This included four congressional districts. The synergism of at least three other factors may have been more important to this community’s efforts:
- An enlightened and visionary electorate here overwhelmingly approved a referendum that allowed a purchase of the 160-acre Hosley farm. The price was $20,000, a considerable sum in 1920 money, probably approaching $180,000 in today’s dollar. That location was then offered to the federal government for the legal consideration of $1. This spacious, cultivated area, with its outstanding peaks, was a highly desirable location. One magazine article described the area as “God’s specifically created country to nurse back to health those unfortunate enough to be overtaken by pulmonary afflictions.” (Adirondack Life, September/October 2006, page 18) It was a gutsy, effective move on the 1920s generation.
- Bertrand Snell of Potsdam, an influential congressman in Washington, was especially helpful. His father, Hollis Snell, was an early lumberman here, who at one time owned extensive landholdings in Tupper Lake. Congressman Snell had many local friends and a special interest in this area.
- Jay Howard Brown and Joe Gokey, delegated to present our bid to Washington officials, were well chosen. Jay was a highly regarded grocery store owner and a Tupper Lake National Bank director from 1916 to 1943 (Brown Brothers store was located in a building recently razed on Park Street next to the Trillium). Joe was the superintendent of the Santa Clara Mill – the largest such operation in New York State. He was also twice mayor, county Republican chairman, school trustee and, later, sheriff.
In my files are notes of the town’s history compiled by Mrs. Aurore Alexander, longtime resident. Here’s what she says about Joe, including a little-known story about how he lured government officials to view the site: “Joe was a big, handsome man, physically, with no formal education. He could barely write his name, however, he was a mental giant. He had keen perception, great vision and unbounded enthusiasm.” Mrs. Alexander insists that “without our unschooled Joe Gokey, we would not have our VA hospital at Sunmount.”
Joe had many political connections in Washington, including President Warren G. Harding (Joe is credited with starting the boom for Harding at the Republican National Convention). However, no one knew anything about Tupper Lake in Washington. At a meeting attended by General Frank Hines, administrator of Veteran Affairs, Joe saw his opportunity and engaged the general in conversation.
“General,” Joe said, “do you like to fish?”
“Yes, very much,” answered the general.
“Well,” Joe continued, “my boss has a beautiful camp on a private lake, away from everything, with a guide to take you fishing and people to take care of you. If you’d like to go there for a week or two, I know Mr. Meigs would be very happy to have you.”
The general did come to fish, and then Joe, Howard Brown and others from the chamber of commerce took him to see the site they had. It immediately caught the general’s eye. The rest is history. That was Joe – nothing too big to tackle. Note: the camp was a summer home on Ampersand Lake, arguably one of the most beautiful, pure, deep-water glacial lakes anywhere, belonging to Ferris J. Meigs, longtime president of the Santa Clara Company and Joe’s boss.
Located in the shadow of Ampersand Mountain and surrounded by the Sawtooth and Seward ranges, it was purchased in 1938 from Mr. Meigs by Avery Rockefeller and remains today under the Rockefeller family stewardship.
In 1922, Tupper Lake was designated as the site for the veterans hospital. On Aug. 15, 1924, the hospital was formally opened, accompanied by one of the most impressive ceremonies in the Tip Top Town.
Conclusion
An undated, anonymous paper in my files proved to be very prophetic:
Under the heading, The Institutionalized Economy of This Village,
it states that the hospital was an economic enterprise that can be
regarded as indispensable, citing a relatively constant employment
level of 475 people, a payroll in the millions and hundreds of thousands
of dollars of purchases made in local businesses. Approximately 95
percent of the employees resided in the immediate area and had above
average earnings (and therefore a higher purchasing power), constituting
a very important asset to the local economy.
The report went on to say that a highly placed government official declared: “There are no plans in the foreseeable future for a change in the mission of this [Sunmount] hospital. While this is a comforting assurance, the realization of which is to be earnestly hoped for, a certain degree of vulnerability always attaches to a situation such as this, where so much of a locality’s wellbeing is directly dependent on a singe enterprise. No effort should be spared by the locality to maintain whatever climate is required to retain this hospital and to ensure the continuance of its present scale of operations.”
Afterward
In 1965, after spending millions in upgrading the facilities, the federal
government stunned this community with a terse January 1965 statement:
“Sunmount will be closed – be prepared to vacate within 60 days.”
In what has been described as Tupper Lake’s finest hour, an immediate response took place as the community rallied with a vigorous but unsuccessful “Save Sunmount” effort. That disappointment was softened when on Sept. 23, 1965, after much hard work, an agreement was reached to transfer the federal institution to the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene. The transition was surprisingly smooth, and Sunmount has remained by far the single most important factor in the economy of the village.