Lake Placid Club

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The Lake Placid Club was a social and recreation club founded 1895 in a hotel on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, New York, under Melvil Dewey's (inventor of the Dewey Decimal system) leadership and according to his ideals. It was instrumental in Lake Placid's development as an internationally known resort. The Club had been an active center of skiing ever since the 1910s, including various attractions such as ski jumping, ice skating, ski-joring, carnivals, and cross-country ski lessons. Melvil Dewey's son Godfrey was involved in bringing the Winter Olympics to Lake Placid in 1932. Without the club's facilities and its national profile, Lake Placid would not have qualified to host the Games. In the 1930s, a group of students from the Yale School of Drama performed at the Club's Lakeside Theater during the summer months.