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Story reprinted from article first appearing in the January
29, 2006 issue of Post Star.
Regional Olympics started with the Dewey Family. By Andy Flynn
| It is
safe to say the Adirondack Park's Olympic heritage would not have existed
without the Lake Placid Club, its winter recreation programs and its founder's son. And although Lake Placid speedskaters dominated international races in the 1920s and 1930s, the first sport to push the community toward winter Olympic glory was Nordic skiing. Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification system and advocate for simplified spelling, was the founder of the original Lake Placid Club, a sprawling resort that once dominated the southeastern shoreline of Mirror Lake. In addition to his title as the "Father of Modern Librarianship," he was also the father of the man who brought the Olympics to Lake Placid, Godfrey Dewey. Under Melvil Dewey's leadership, the Lake Placid Club had, by 1920, become a destination for winter sports enthusiasts. Visitors could |
enjoy activities such as skating, hockey,
ski joring, dog sledding and skiing. By 1917, the club had about 20 miles
of cross-country ski trails and in 1920 founded its own ski organization,
the Sno Birds. The Lake Placid Club was so invested in winter sports in the 1920s that Sno Birds members donated much of the money needed for the U.S. ski team to compete in the 1928 Olympic Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Godfrey Dewey was the ski team's manager and personally paid the International Ski Federation the team's dues. Godfrey Dewey's Sno Birds sweater is currently on display in the "Woods and Waters" exhibit. Dating to the 1920s or 1930s, it is made of white wool and features a blue-and-white Sno Birds emblem on the front. A blue- and-white pin on the sweater depicts a skier and reads: "1939-40/LAKE PLACID CLUB." Godfrey Dewey enjoyed the
|
outdoors, especially skiing,
and he found a new passion with bobsledding in the late 1920s. By then,
he had participated in the winter Olympics in 1928 and traveled throughout
Europe, studying venues and plugging the Adirondack Mountains as a winter
sports destination. Lake Placid, he said, could host the winter Olympics. On April 10, 1929, in Lausanne, Switzerland, the International Olympic Committee announced that Lake Placid had won the bid to host the third Olympic Winter Games in 1932. Learn more about Adirondack history and the "Adirondack
Attic" column and books by logging on to www.adkmuseum.org and
www.hungrybearpublishing.com. Andy Flynn lives in Saranac Lake. He can
be reached via e-mail at adkattic@yahoo.com. |