Vacant Passenger Train Depot in Upstate New York

Lyon Mountain Railroad Station, Lyon Mountain New York

Date added: September 30, 2024

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The Lyon Mountain Railroad Station is a turn-of-the-century railroad station, typical of the type built by the Delaware and Hudson Railroad (D&H) during the early part of the 20^th Century. Built in 1903, it is a one-story, frame, hipped-roof building comprised of a passenger terminal in one end and a freight section with a loading platform in the other. The station is a testament to the late-19^th through early-20^th Century historic development of the area as it shifted from an industrial-based economy because of its wealth of iron ore, to a recreation/tourism-based economy because of its proximity to the Adirondacks and the popular Chateaugay Lake with its hotels, camps and seasonal homes. Since the area was not well suited to farming, its development in the 19^th Century depended on mining and on the growing urban interest in the Adirondack recreations of hunting and fishing, as well as the presumed health benefits of the Adirondack air and climate.

The station served the community until 1949-50 when the D&H ceased operations on this line. Since then, the Women's Waiting Room side of the station has housed a US Post Office, and the Men's Waiting Room has been used as a tavern. The station remains largely "as built" and continues to reflect the development and prosperity enjoyed by this small upstate community during the latter part of the 19^th and into the first half of the 20^th Century.

The hamlet of Lyon Mountain lies within the Old Military Tract, a large parcel of land set aside at the end of the 18^th Century to be awarded to veterans who had served in the New York State militia during the Revolution, partially as payment of services and partially to help spread settlements throughout the new nation. However, because the area was very remote and mountainous, settlement around Lyon Mountain was sparse through the first few decades of the 19^th Century. The few settlers in the area were generally hunters/trappers. The hamlet of Lyon Mountain traces its origin back to 1803 when a settler by the name of Nathaniel Lyon came from Vermont and settled at the base of the mountain that would eventually bear his name.

In 1823, a trapper named George Collins discovered a body of ore in the area and Lyon Mountain's association with iron ore mining began. Prior to this, the people of Clinton County were primarily engaged in raising livestock, lumbering, dairying, and fruit growing. The deposits of ore, which were found between Lyon Mountain and the eastern shore of Upper Chateaugay Lake, stimulated the growth of a regional mining economy, but only on a small scale due to the lack of a transportation infrastructure. The coming of railroads to the North Country in the 1850s, the development of steamboats on the lake, and the opening of a plank road from the ore beds to the railhead at Saranac all contributed to the growth of the mining community.

In 1868, Messrs. Foote, Wead, Meade, and Waldo purchased four-fifths of the land on which the deposits were discovered. Eventually, Andrew Williams and Smith M. Reed became the sole owners and formed a partnership called the Chateaugay Iron Company. Large-scale mining at Lyon Mountain began in 1868, and accelerated in 1873 with the establishment of the Plattsburgh-based Chateugay Iron Company. An 1856 map of Clinton County shows the area around Lyon Mountain as a roadless wilderness and within a few short years, records indicate that there were over 700 people living in Lyon Mountain and working at the mine pits or associated smelters. By the 1870s, there were over 700 inhabitants. In 1879, a post office was established and the Chateaugay Railroad Company was organized, building a railroad linking the Lyon Mountain mine with Plattsburgh. By 1880, the Chateaugay Ore Bed produced about 100 tons of ore per day.

By the third quarter of the 19^th century, Lyon Mountain was a company town for the iron works and the train station was a central component of both the mining operation and village life. A passenger and freight station (no longer extant) was opened in Lyon Mountain in 1880 and remained in service until 1903 when the D&H took over the mining, processing and rail operations of the Chateaugay Ore & Iron Co. The narrow gauge railroad of the Chateaugay Railroad Company was supplanted by standard gauge under the new owner. In 1903, the new line with a passenger and freight station at Lyon Mountain was constructed west of, and roughly parallel to, the original narrow gauge line.

Throughout the latter part of the 19^th Century and the first part of the 20^th Century, the railroad played an important role in the development of the area's tourism economy generated by the resort communities in and around nearby Upper Chateaugay Lake. A number of hotels lined Chateaugay Lake, including Ralph's (1872-1916), The Merrill House (1869-1916), The Owly Out (1898-1917), Indian Point House (1882-1918), and The Banner House (1830-present). Visitors arrived at the Lyon Mountain Railroad Station and took the stage, and subsequently motor transportation, from there to the various hotels and seasonal resorts around the lake. Many notable visitors utilized the station including D. W. Griffiths, Sherwood Anderson, Supreme Court Justice Hughes, and other notable artists, writers, and opera stars. As indicated by the dates above, the resort industry in the area was hard hit by the effects of World War I coupled with the advent of the automobile industry which tended to keep people within driving distance when vacationing. Later, the Depression took its toll on the remainder of the area's tourism industry.

While the tourism industry was in decline during the early part of the 20^th Century, mining continued to be a thriving industry in Lyon Mountain. Expansion and modernization of its operations occurred during the early part of the century due to the increased demand for steel in World War I. Beginning in the 1920s, increased production costs caused the mine to gradually decrease its output and scale back operations. But shortly after Republic Steel Corporation took over the mining operations in 1939, production once again increased in response to World War II, and again during the Korean War. After the Korean War, however, production once again slowed, and in 1966, Republic Steel abandoned all mining operations at Lyon Mountain. Company owned houses and buildings were sold to former employees and the land on which the mine and ore processing facilities were located was turned over to the town of Dannemora. The hamlet of Lyon Mountain never recovered economically from the mine closure.

Prior to the closing of the mine, the Lyon Mountain Railroad Station had already fallen victim to the economic tides of the failed tourist industry and the waning mining industry. Passenger service to Lyon Mountain ceased in 1950, followed by the elimination of freight service in 1957. Shortly thereafter (c.1962), the south end of the station was converted to use as a Post Office and the middle section was converted to a tavern. These functions operated in the station until the early 1990s, when the building was vacated. The Friends of Lyon Mountain, a not-for-profit group formed to preserve the station, acquired the property in 2000.

In scale, type and style the Lyon Mountain Railroad Station is similar to other rural train stations built by the D&H during the early 1900s, although the specific design of each station is different. Its architectural style can be characterized as Queen Anne, a stylist variant of the late Victorian period. Major characteristics of the style apparent in the station include the hip roof, roof brackets, and a variety of wall surface treatments; in this case, vertical board on the lower part of the wall and clapboard on the upper part. (A number of other D&H stations of the period have a masonry lower wall with wood siding above.) The horizontal banding on the station and other trim work contrasting with the siding is also consistent with the Queen Anne style, although it did not originate with it. Unlike other buildings with the Queen Anne style, however, the train station as a building type, which typically has a simple form and a long and low sloping bracketed roof. These characteristics, which are very well represented in the Lyon Mountain station, are archetypal of the rural American train station of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The station also has a very representative floor plan for train stations of its era. Characteristics of this plan include a one-room deep building, functionally zoned along its length, with a few simple axial relationships and a trackside bay window. The overall architectural significance of the Lyon Mountain Railroad Station is enhanced by its relatively high level of historic integrity and its prominent siting.

Building Description

The Lyon Mountain Railroad Station is located on the southern edge of the hamlet of Lyon Mountain in the town of Dannemora, Clinton County, New York. Dannemora is in the western part of Clinton County and lies within the low mountains subdivision of the Adirondack uplands. The area is characterized by steep mountains interspersed with narrow valleys. The original landscape of the Lyon Mountain area has been subjected to extensive modification by modern human activity. Grading and filling associated with iron ore mining, tailings disposal and community development are the primary agents of the modifications.

The Lyon Mountain Railroad Station occupies an approximate 1/3 acre, irregularly shaped parcel of land at the north end of First Street where it intersects with Standish Road. The station is oriented approximately northeast-southwest with 300' frontage on Standish Road. The tracks, which originally ran in front (west) of the station, have been removed. A small brook, or a drainage channel, borders the property to the east. The land rises to the northeast of the station where the slope is now heavily wooded, with a hiking/snowmobile trail running through the edge of the woods onto the station site and then north along Standish Road. This slope once had numerous buildings on it; however, today only the train station remains.

The Lyon Mountain Railroad Station, built in 1903, is a one-story, long, rectangular building (approximately 30' x 112') with a hipped roof, wide overhanging bracketed eaves and a slate-shingled ventilation lantern (cupola) with battered sides, louvers, and a pyramidal roof. A bay window, which allowed the stationmaster or ticket agent to look down the tracks to signals or for arriving trains, projects from the building's rectangular footprint on the west side, the principal elevation of the station. A raised wooden loading dock is attached to the building on each of the long sides of the Freight Room. A brick chimney pierces the roof above the Freight Room. A grade-level concrete apron or platform surrounds all of the station except the Freight Room. This platform does not appear to be original to the building, but has been in place since 1925. Possibly, the station originally had a wood platform in a similar configuration.

The station's original slate shingle roof was replaced in the 1950s and again in the 1970s with asphalt shingles. In 2001, it was replaced again with slate-sized asphalt shingles. The slate shingles on the walls of the lantern, however, are original and were restored in 2001. The top half of the building is sheathed in narrow clapboard siding while the bottom half is sheathed with vertical wood planking The latter trim serves to delineate the lower solid wall from the upper fenestrated wall. Double-hung two-over-one windows are set above the horizontal banding, in a regular pattern according to the interior functions of the building.

Originally, there was an exterior door on the northwest elevation into each of two waiting rooms, the Baggage Room, and the Freight Room, aligned with a matching door on the southeast elevation of each of these spaces. The original passenger doors appear to have been six-panel wood doors with transoms above. One of these door units is extant and the other passenger area doors/or openings have been altered. The Baggage Room doors were seven-panel sliding doors with transoms above. One of the original two doors is extant. The Freight Room doors are large sliding rail and stile doors made of vertical boards with diagonal stiles and transoms above. Both original doors and one transom remain. The freight loading platforms are wood frame structures with plank decking and vertical board skirting. There is a set of wood steps down to the concrete platform at the end of the northwest platform.

Currently, the station is painted in a two-color scheme: green on the lower part of the building and the trim work; yellow on the upper part of the building as well as the roof brackets and overhang. Evidence both from a historic photograph and paint scrapings from the building suggests an original three-color paint scheme of ochre, a reddish-brown or brownish-red and a deep brown or dark rust.

The station served both passenger and freight traffic. The northern third of the building is the Freight Room and the remainder of the building contained passenger facilities. The Baggage Room is logically located between the passenger waiting rooms and the Freight Room. Each of the major spaces in the station spans the full width of the building, except the Ticket Office, which separates the Men's Waiting Room from the Women's Waiting Room. The Women's Waiting Room occupies the southern end of the building and the Men's Waiting Room occupies an equal-sized space north of it. A door behind the Ticket Office connects both rooms. The Ticket Office projects into one corner of both waiting rooms and also projects from the exterior wall as a bay the width of the office. There is a door from the Ticket Office and a ticket window into each waiting room. Each waiting room also has a small toilet room in the back corner, as well as an entrance/exit platform on both sides of the station. The composition of the Ticket Office flanked by matching waiting rooms is symmetrical. The Baggage Room, which is adjacent to the Men's Waiting Room, also opens onto both platforms and connects on the interior to the Men's Waiting Room. The Freight Room floor level is approximately three feet higher than the rest of the building to align with the high-level exterior freight platforms. A small door and stairs connect the Freight Room to the Baggage Room. The overall condition of these rooms is good with the Freight Room doors still in operating condition.

The interior of the station retains original beaded board finishes, paneled doors, door and window trims with bulls-eye corner blocks, and other original finishes. Interior conditions vary from fair to good, with the poorer conditions in the Men's Waiting Room, Ticket Office, and a portion of the Baggage Room, which are the areas of the building that have had the hardest use over the past century. This is the area that was adapted for use as a public tavern (c.1962) resulting in a loss of integrity to the original spatial configuration. The flooring in the tavern area is heavily worn, in spots worn through the VAT tile and plywood and into the historic hardwood flooring underneath. Except for the partition and door alterations, however, the beadboard wall finish is intact and in good condition, also, above the acoustical tile ceiling, the beadboard ceiling appears to be intact and in good condition. While a couple of partitions were inserted in the area of the former Women's Waiting Room when it was adapted for use as a Post Office (c.1962), the only historic fabric that appears to have been lost is in the area where the entrance door was relocated. Overall, the interior of this area of the building is intact and in good condition. Likewise, in the Freight Room, a partition was added but the historic fabric of this space is intact and in fair to good condition. The floor planking is somewhat worn, but the wear is normal for the age and use of the space and plenty sound material remains. At this time all of the building systems, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing are not functional.