President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on Sept. 14, 1935 at the podium in front of the Lake Placid High School, officially dedicating the Veterans’ Memorial Highway on Whiteface Mountain. At the bottom left, it looks like a press table and it appears to be press photographers balancing on the rungs of that construction crane in the right background. Maybe the big guy to the right of the podium in a black overcoat and a wide-brimmed fedora worn low on the forehead would not want anyone to notice him (hello) because he was probably Secret Service. Now, the two New York State troopers wearing the Black Horse Troop B uniforms of the day looked to me like Sean Donovan and Mike Ryan, but I don’t know if they were around in 1935. Also, in the chair right behind the president appears to be North Elba Judge Robi Politi. (Photo courtesy of the New York Heritage Collection)

It seems that many times I take “things” for granted that have existed longer than I have. One of those “things” is the beautiful highway that brings us to the top of beautiful Whiteface Mountain.

Imagine for a minute, in 1929, the construction of an eight-mile, 20-foot wide highway up a mountain covered with trees and rocks. Also remember that the construction equipment was not the state-of-the-art vehicles we have today — hauling the black-top today on “flow-boys” that carry 36 tons or the trucks with six-sets of dual wheels that carry 22 tons. Back then, the work was all done with horses, wagons, steam shovels and small dump trucks.

The highway has been there for 90 years so here is an 87 year-old story from The Enterprise.

“Plans for opening the Whiteface Mountain Memorial Highway for the season on May 14 are now complete, according to officials who have been supervising preparations for the past several weeks.

“Members of the state commission which operates the scenic mountain route confidently expect that in 1938 last season’s traffic figures will be exceeded by a wide margin.

“Last year, during the period that the road was open for public travel, from May 15 to early November, 70,000 persons went up the motor highway which winds up the slopes of Whiteface Mountain at the head of Lake Placid.”

[After numerous phone calls a reliable source told me ‘off the record’ that in 2024 that number was around 100,000; sometimes they count persons and sometimes they count cars and to me that appears to be a person count.] “The scenic highway was first opened to traffic on July 20, 1935. It was formally dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 14 of that year. It is 8.05 miles long and is built of macadam, 20 feet wide. Unlike so many mountain highways the Whiteface highway is an easy climb. At no point does the grade exceed ten per cent and the average is only eight and one half. The road winds to the top of the peak in a series of hairpin turns.

“Whiteface Mountain gets its name from the white rock slide on its southeastern slope, visible seventy miles away. From the summit of the mountain, on a clear day, 40 different communities and 137 bodies of water may be seen.”

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A Saranac Laker’s idea

for Whiteface

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After more research the Wikipedia site turned up this interesting history … from which these excerpts are taken …

“The idea of constructing a road up Whiteface Mountain was first conceived in the early 19th and 20th centuries by Marcellus Leonard, an entrepreneur from Saranac Lake. The plans for the highway began to take shape in the 1920’s when the land for the road was given by its owner to the state of New York on the condition that it would be named after America’s Great War veterans. The road was later renamed to honor veterans from all wars and when New York Governor [1929-1932] Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the highway in 1929 its official name became The Veterans’ Memorial Highway.

“Mr. Leonard, considered to be the ‘father’ of the highway did not live to see the highway open as he died at age 90 in February, 1935, a few months before the road opened.

“The charge to drive up the new highway was $1 for each car and $1 for each additional passenger. In 2018 it was $15 for each car and $8 for each additional passenger.

“Plans for the highway surfaced in 1929 and a bid of $687,572.50 [that amount today would probably be enough to pave the municipal parking lot] was submitted to construct the new roadway two years later. Construction was started in 1931, with crews working until near Christmas when snow impeded their progress. Work on the highway resumed on March 15, 1932. The new stone walls guarding the highway cost $100,000 to construct. In all the road cost $1.2 million to construct.”

“President Roosevelt had an elevator installed in 1938. The 426-foot tunnel from the parking lot to reach the elevator, is drilled through solid rock as is the elevator shaft.”

An Olympic Regional Development Authority piece on the mountain highway has this cool description …

“This highway remains an engineering marvel to this day, offering an awe-inspiring journey to one of the highest peaks in the Adirondacks.”