125 Years Later, Theodore Roosevelt’s Ride to the Presidency Still Runs Through the Adirondacks
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States.
In September 1901, Theodore Roosevelt came to the Adirondacks for the wilderness. He left them bound for the Presidency.
That extraordinary journey takes center stage this September as TR Weekend in Newcomb, September 11–13, joins anniversary programs in North Creek to mark 125 years since Roosevelt’s famous Night Ride to the Presidency.
Part history festival, part Adirondack weekend and part pilgrimage through the places where the story actually happened, the commemoration includes reenactments, Great Camp tours, outdoor recreation, live theater, film, music and community events.
What makes the anniversary particularly compelling is that the Adirondacks aren’t merely providing an attractive backdrop. The landscape is part of the plot.
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A presidency passed through the Adirondacks.
Roosevelt was staying at Tahawus near Newcomb when President William McKinley, who had been shot in Buffalo, took a turn for the worse. After word reached Roosevelt during a Mount Marcy excursion, he descended from the mountains and began the now-legendary nighttime carriage journey through Newcomb and Minerva toward the railroad station in North Creek.
North Creek’s historic train depot.
There he learned McKinley had died. Roosevelt boarded a train for Buffalo, where he would take the oath of office as the nation’s 26th president.
Try staging that story anywhere else, and something essential disappears.
The distance matters. The mountains matter. The darkness and primitive roads matter. Even the limitations of communication in 1901 matter. A national political crisis collided with Adirondack geography, creating one of the most remarkable presidential transitions in American history.
In Newcomb, history gets out of the museum.
That connection explains why TR Weekend in Newcomb feels different from a conventional historical commemoration.
Visitors can take a horse-drawn wagon five miles into Great Camp Santanoni, hike Goodnow Mountain, browse Adirondack crafts at Overlook Park, watch collegiate timber sports, catch live music and see vintage cars. Community breakfasts, school fundraisers and a kids’ fishing derby make the weekend feel unmistakably like a small Adirondack town celebrating its own history rather than performing history for outsiders.
Then Roosevelt walks back into the room.
Nationally known Theodore Roosevelt reprisor Joe Wiegand stars in Saturday evening’s swearing-in reenactment, portraying the larger-than-life president and taking questions from the audience in character.
The effect is a little history lesson, a little theater and a great deal more fun than memorizing presidential dates.
Joe Wiegand, internationally acclaimed Teddy Roosevelt reprisor.
The story follows Roosevelt to North Creek.
The anniversary does not stop at the Newcomb town line—and neither did Roosevelt.
On Saturday, September 12, Wiegand heads to the North Creek Depot Museum, the place where Roosevelt’s overnight dash reached the railroad, for his dramatic performance On Becoming President. The setting gives the performance an immediacy that would be difficult to manufacture on a conventional stage.
On Sunday, September 13, Tannery Pond Center screens the PBS documentary A Cowboy’s Ride to the White House. Adirondack historian Glenn Pearsall will introduce the film before joining author and environmentalist Bill McKibben for a conversation about Roosevelt’s legacy as a conservation president.
And the story continues beyond the weekend. On Thursday, September 17, Gem Radio Theatre presents Teddy Roosevelt’s Wild Night Ride to the Presidency: An Adirondack Adventure at Tannery Pond Center. Actors in period costume, sound effects, and historic photographs recreate the journey—and the play carries an unusual connection to the event itself: Heloise Cronin Murphy, daughter of Mike Cronin, the third driver in the relay that carried Roosevelt to North Creek, wrote it.
The Adirondacks offer something history books cannot.
For travelers, the anniversary creates an unusual opportunity to experience history geographically.
The man in the arena, Theodore Roosevelt.
A visitor can see Tahawus country, ride into Santanoni, travel part of Roosevelt’s route and eventually stand at the North Creek Depot. These aren't reconstructed locations chosen because they resemble 1901. They are the communities and landscapes through which the story unfolded.
That also makes the celebration distinctly Adirondack. History here is intertwined with wilderness, conservation, Great Camp culture, small communities and the complicated relationship between people and protected landscapes.
Roosevelt embodies many of those contradictions himself—which helps explain why organizers can return to his story year after year without telling precisely the same one.
Listen: 125 Years Later: Teddy Roosevelt’s Ride to the Presidency.
For the story behind the anniversary, the recent ADK Talks episode, 125 Years Later: Teddy Roosevelt’s Ride to the Presidency, explores Roosevelt’s historic journey and why Newcomb and North Creek are still telling it 125 years later.
The conversation goes beyond the familiar midnight-ride tale to consider Roosevelt’s remarkably complex legacy and why each year’s TR Weekend can illuminate a different part of his life.
For anyone planning to attend, it makes particularly good listening on the drive into the central Adirondacks.
ADK Taste recommendations.
Don’t try to experience this anniversary as a checklist. Choose a few anchor experiences and leave enough time to appreciate the places between them.
History marker on Roosevelt’s route.
For Saturday, Newcomb offers the fullest festival atmosphere, with Overlook Park activities, Santanoni experiences and the evening reenactment.
History devotees should consider following Roosevelt’s path into North Creek as well, particularly for Wiegand’s depot performance or Sunday’s film and conservation discussion.
Reservations are required for some Santanoni programs, so check individual event listings before setting out.
ADK Taste perspective.
The Adirondacks are usually marketed through mountains, lakes, paddles and hiking boots. TR Weekend offers a useful reminder that the Park also holds remarkable chapters of American history.
For visitors who love nature but want more than outdoor recreation, the anniversary is an especially good example of what an Adirondack trip can be: a Great Camp in the morning, local crafts and music in the afternoon, presidential history before dinner and a story that makes the road between Newcomb and North Creek look entirely different on the drive home.
One hundred twenty-five years later, Roosevelt’s famous ride still does what the best Adirondack stories do: it connects the landscape to something much larger.
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Find the best places to eat, shop, stay and experience near Newcomb.
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