LAKE PLACID, N.Y. – The Lake Placid Olympic Museum recently rediscovered a scrapbook dating from the 1910’s to the 1920’s, created by Henry Uihlein II, in its archives while undergoing an inventory of the collections. This treasure reveals a new story of how Lake Placid became a mecca for winter sports and has recently been digitized and uploaded to the New York Heritage Digital Collections website (http://newyorkheritage.org/), where it is now able to be browsed in its entirety.
The album is a unique collection of beautiful black and white photographs, articles, and objects relating to speed skating around Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. When Museum staff first looked through the scrapbook, they were amazed to learn that largely through Henry Uihlein’s efforts, Lake Placid gained world-wide recognition when he brought the village’s first International event in 1920; when they hosted the International Outdoor Speed Skating Championships.
Museum Director, Alison Haas, stated, “As you flip through the pages of the book, it becomes evident that Henry Uihlein, a businessman, had a passion for speed skating and was a proud supporter of Lake Placid’s area youth, including skater, Charles Jewtraw, the 1924 Olympic champion. History always gives credit to Godfrey Dewey, President of the 1932 Olympic Winter Games, but Henry should no longer be overlooked and is equally important to our story.”
Funded by the Henry Uihlein II and Mildred A. Uihlein Foundation, staff at the Lake Placid Olympic Museum along with the Northern New York Library Network worked together to digitize the scrapbook to help preserve the contents found inside. The scrapbook provides a unique record of Lake Placid’s history and museum staff is in the beginning stage of planning an exhibit to be installed in the spring of 2016. The exhibit will feature content found within the scrapbook and focus on the hard work and dedication of Lake Placid’s winter sports pioneers and speed skating.
If you would like to learn more about this project and the stories of speed skating in Lake Placid, please visit the Lake Placid Olympic Museum on Main Street. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
About Lake Placid Olympic Museum
The mission of the Lake Placid Olympic Museum is to tell the world about the Olympic movement and Lake Placid’s rich winter sports’ history in order to promote the values of Olympism to the broadest possible audience. The museum and its collections is governed by the Lake Placid Olympic Museum board of trustees and is a 501 c3 corporation. For more information about the museum, visit: www.lpom.org.