Spitfire Lake

Spitfire Lake
Location	Franklin County, New York
Coordinates
Type	lake
Surface area	250-acre (1.0 km2)

File:St. Regis Mountain, from Spitfire Lake.jpg

St. Regis Mountain from Spitfire Lake

Spitfire Lake is a part of the St. Regis River in the Adirondacks in northern New York State and is 250-acre (1.0 km²) in area. Along with Upper and Lower St. Regis Lake, it became well-known in the late 19th century as a summer playground of America's power elite, drawn to the area by its scenery and by the "rustic charms" of Paul Smith's Hotel. It is the site of a number of grand old summer "cottages" and Great Camps; Frederick W. Vanderbilt, Anson Phelps Stokes and Whitelaw Reid were among the summer residents. "The camps of many of these families began as tent colonies, with separate units for sleeping, dining, games, and so on, and evolved into permanent structures built with understated taste".

Spitfire is part of the original Seven Carries canoe route from Paul Smith's Hotel to Saranac Inn.

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  The Inlet, Spitfire Lake, 1903
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  A "Camp" on Spitfire Lake
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  Boat house on Spitfire Lake

Sources

• Donaldson, Alfred L., A History of the Adirondacks. New York: Century, 1921. . (reprint)
• Jerome, Christine Adirondack Passage: Cruise of Canoe Sairy Gamp, HarperCollins, 1994. .

External links

• New York Times, "Point Racing at Paul Smiths", August 9, 1909. (pdf)
• New York Times, "Yacht Racing on St. Regis Lake", August 7, 1904. (pdf)
• New York Times, "Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan to be Guest of Ambassador Reid at Dinner in Honor of Birthday of D.O. Mills", September 5, 1909. (PDF)