The Adirondack Mountains have a unique character: rugged, remote wilderness; soaring mountain peaks, and hundreds of lakes, wooded glens, and abundant wildlife, to name just a few attributes. Beginning at least as early as the middle 19th century, summer resorts—grand, medium, and small—were built as retreats for tourists in search of peace, quiet, recreation, and the chance to escape from the busy routines of their daily lives.
These hostelries, family-owned businesses, vied for the attention, business, and income of tourists, not only by advertising in magazines and newspapers, but also by issuing hundreds of brochures, postcards, and other printed matter. The brochures were as varied as the hotels themselves, sometimes elaborate and expensive in their production values, but more often simple pamphlets.
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The resort hotels of the Adirondacks shared in common the Victorian absurdity common to mountain resorts everywhere—the building of wooden fire traps perched precipitously in remote locations to afford the very best views and, often, the very worst prospects of safety. As far as we know however, most fires seemed to happen off-season, and some of the greatest Adirondack hotels such as the Hotel Champlain in Clinton County, the Fort William Henry in Lake George and the Sagamore in Bolton Landing, even described themselves as “fireproof.”
The vacation as an American institution didn’t begin to evolve until after the Civil War. Of course, before then the wealthy could afford to get there, and flocked to the mountains by boat, train, and carriage. But vacations became democratized with the improvement of roads and train travel, and with the growth of labor unions allowing workers a predictable period of paid leave each year.
One not very appealing aspect of resort hotels in the United States, including those in the Adirondacks, was blatant prejudice. Jewish people were not welcomed, and the very thought of African American guests was unimaginable. Although sometimes couched in catch phrases such as, “carefully selected guests,” “guests by recommendation or referral,” “Christian clientele,” or “Protestant and Catholic churches nearby,” one resort got it down to two words: “No Hebrews.” On the other hand, Jewish, Irish, Italian and German hotels had their own code words to ensure only the desired clientele. Jewish establishments, for example, used such terms as “dietary laws observed,” or “Kosher cuisine,” or “strictly Kosher.”
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Adirondack hotel brochures, when considered as examples of promotional literature, are not as graphically spectacular as pamphlets advertising the region in general. The size and diversity of the Adirondack region provided a broader palette of imagery from which illustrators could choose, and since only the “right” people were welcome at the hotels, brochures that were too enticing and appealing might have attracted the “wrong” people. Nonetheless, some of the hotels issued very elegant and appealing tourist literature. An occasional full-color hotel brochure rivals any from anywhere in the U.S.A.
However, most examples dating from the late 19th and early 20th century were very modest and understated—small in size, 4-by-6 inches or so, and containing about 8 to 12 pages. Their illustrations were usually small, grainy half tones of the facilities and their enticements.
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As collectible paper, Adirondack brochures have become scarce and prices have risen dramatically. In the good old days before eBay, brochures were plentiful and could be bought for five or ten dollars, or even less in areas geographically far removed from the Adirondacks. Now, with the growth of the eBay marketplace, every “view” has become a “local view.” That person in Idaho or Texas who happens upon an excellent example from far away can reach a broad range of collectors across the country or the world. Collectors of Adirondack or Atlantic City ephemera for example, regardless of where they live, have an equal shot at knowing about, or buying, thus driving up the price. For example, a small, circa 1900 brochure from a tiny hotel on Blue Mountain Lake, purchased from an unknowing paper dealer for a dollar 15 years ago, recently brought over $200 on line. At the time of its original purchase, a more sophisticated dealer might have charged $30 or $40.
The disappearance of most of the Adirondack hotels, of course, marked the end of hotel brochures. Patterns of vacations have also changed. In the first half of the 20th century, guests used to arrive to spend weeks or months soaking up the salubrious climate and spectacular scenery, and the hotels thrived. But improved transportation turned out to be a mixed blessing. With the advent of automobiles, the interstate highway system, jet planes, and cruise ships, the whole equation began to change. Instead of settling in for prolonged stays, latter day tourists had much greater mobility. A day here and a day there was just “the thing.” These vacationers also had more flexibility in their choice of activities. While their counterparts in the old days passed the time trapped in their hotels playing cards and silly games waiting for rainy days to pass, the tourists of today can take off for sunnier horizons.
Adirondacks hotels became dinosaurs, magnificent monuments to another age of vacation bliss. Only a few live on, some serving their original function and others reinvented for other uses. Ironically, what survives to keep these long-gone hostelries alive in our minds and hearts is the fragile evidence once intended as throwaway advertising—pieces of paper, sometimes squirreled away in attics, making an unintentional trip to the 21st century.
