George A. Stevens— Stocking Lake Placid

The latest in an occasional series of posts.

It often is referred to as “bringing home the bacon.”

In this case, it was bringing the fish to your home away from home.

U.S. Rep. Steven A. Ayres, D-Bronx, who often vacationed in the Adirondacks, arranged for the first federal stocking of trout in the Lake Placid area, the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on April 18, 1913.

The fish, coming from a federal hatchery at Cape Vincent, in Jefferson County, were received as the result of “the persistent efforts” of George A. Stevens, an Essex County Republican leader and former state Assemblyman who owed the Stevens House hotel in Lake Placid.

The 20,000 two-month-old brook trout, left up to Stevens to distribute, originally were to be placed in Lake Placid, the Ausable River and Chubb River, but were all placed in Lake Placid because of the young age when they arrived via special messenger, The Plattsburgh Sentinel reported on May 6, 1913.

Less than 100 fish died in transit.

Stevens was an avid outdoor recreation enthusiast who had hunted and fished with President Grover Cleveland, the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on Sept. 23, 1920.

In 1906, George Stevens and his sons had set a season record for catching brook trout in the Lake Placid area, the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on May 31, 1906.

Catching trout wasn’t always the only excitement on a fishing trip.

“It is reported that Hon. George A. Stevens, proprietor of the Stevens House, Lake Placid, a hunter of note, saw three wolves in the Saranac River country where he was fishing last week,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on July 14, 1910. “Sixty years ago the last wolf was killed in Elizabethtown. Forty-three years ago the last wolf was killed in Essex County.”

“Occasionally wolves have been reported in the Essex County forests, but their existence has been doubted,” The Potsdam Herald-Recorder reported on July 29, 1910. “However, Mr. Stevens is an experienced woodsman who has hunted in the wild regions of Canada, and is not likely to have been mistaken.”

Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.