Sorry for the double blog post – this idea is totally
unrelated to my previous blog post, so I thought I would just write a separate one.
Anyway, I’m trying to make sense of how, exactly, the
Adirondacks came about. So far this semester, we’ve followed the region through
its winding history, beginning with a glimpse of the native peoples, then we looked at trapping and colonialism, followed by the dawn of recreation and vacation, and now
the establishment of the Adirondack Park and forest preserve. It seems like
this piece of the timeline is an especially important one – the park’s
establishment set the foundation for the way we now view and study the region.
So: now I’m wondering, why did the state finally push for the forest preserve?
My thoughts so far:
I think that Adirondack Murray and Verplanck Colvin are the
two Adirondack kingpins. Adirondack
Murray opened up the region to recreation and vacation; he made it an inviting
place and encouraged outsiders to foster an emotional attachment to the region.
Colvin took a different approach and actually proposed the formation of a
forest preserve, and used a purely economic standpoint to substantiate his
suggestion.
Questions:
Did anyone else (besides Murray and Colvin) have an especially
important role in the establishment of the Adirondack Park?
Did Murray’s
writings actually help spur the formation of the park/did vacation and
recreation culture have any correlation with the forest preserve or was its
establishment purely economic?
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