The Adirondack Park in New York State offers a rare combination of breathtaking natural beauty, surprising and inspiring stories, and rich traditions of progress and preservation. Created in 1892 amid concerns for the water and timber resources of the region, the park is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States and draws between seven and ten million visitors yearly. Since 1957, Adirondack Experience (formerly the Adirondack Museum) has shared stories of the people who lived, worked and played in the Adirondacks through their rich collection of objects, photographs, books, manuscripts, and historical records. This fully illustrated book shares the region’s unique history, while celebrating the transformation of the Adirondacks from wilderness to mineral and lumber resource to resort community to recreation getaway.