Plattsburgh's scenic location just north of the Adirondacks and on Lake Champlain attracted numerous dignitaries and achieved wide recognition as a first class resort and commercial and industrial area. Many presidents made Plattsburgh a stopping place, including President McKinley, who maintained a summer residence in the area, and Teddy Roosevelt, who visited American troops at Plattsburgh Barracks. Baseball immortal Babe Ruth vacationed here in the off season. The area's military influence continued prior to and during World War II with the formation of Citizens Training Camps, predecessor of ROTC programs, and the opening of a major Air Force base. National defense, a major player in the local economy, eventually took a lesser role in Plattsburgh's economic picture as health care and education took hold in the area. Manufacturing in Plattsburgh in the past has seen sewing machines and automobiles. Currently, in addition to tourism, rail car production, pharmaceuticals, plastics and composites, fiber optics, and paper products manufacturing spearhead the local economy.

Throughout the war of 1812, British forces targeted Lake Champlain as an invasion route. United States Navy Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough was able to confine them in the Richelieu River of Quebec throughout the summer of 1813. American shipbuilders spent the following winter and summer in Vergennes, Vermont building a United States naval war fleet.

Macdonough's fleet was battle-ready none to soon as American General Alexander Macomb faced reinforced British forces gathering for a land invasion in Plattsburgh. On the morning of September 11, 1814, British Captain George Downe brought his warship around Cumberland Head to aid in the invasion and found Macdonough's ships already anchored upwind in the bay. The ensuing battle took place in close quarters, giving Macdonough's cannonade-equipped vessels an advantage over the British ships' heavier guns. The battle lasted two and one half hours and cost the lives of 143 men who were buried together on nearby Crab Island. Its decisive outcome effectively ended the war.

The link below more fully describes the Battle of Plattsburgh and its significance in the history of the United States. It also relates plans now under way to preserve an important historical site on PARC property adjacent to Lake Champlain and to pursue a strategy to create a major tourist destination on the scale of Fort Ticonderoga and Colonial Williamsburg.

Battle of Plattsburgh

Margaret Street in downtown Plattsburgh at the turn of the 20th Century.