Saranac Lake first settled in the early 1800s was still a wilderness hamlet by the mid-1870’s, lacking even a single church. Dr. Edward L. Trudeau an avid sportsman returned to the Adirondacks from his native NYC, expecting to die here from tuberculosis. He recovered instead, a fact he attributed to the area’s unpolluted air and brisk climate. He soon established what would become a world-renowned center for tuberculosis sufferers and began research to investigate causes and treatments for the disease. Saranac Lake began to attract hundreds, then thousands of victims of the “white plague” because of the high (for that time) rate of survival and recovery of those who came for treatment.

The Church evolved out of the needs of the patients and the professionals caring for them in the late 1800’s. Church services at that time were being held in the Berkeley Hotel, which housed a number of patients. Patients gave money for the establishment of a Church and asked the founder of Saranac Lake’s medical community, Dr. Edward L. Trudeau to oversee its establishment. Dr. Trudeau agreed, with the proviso “that I was to have entire charge, and that I was to be allowed to build the church steeple downward and the foundation upward if I saw fit.” (Quote from Trudeau’s autobiography.)

With that understanding, he headed the committee that organized, built, and appropriately named “Church of St. Luke the Beloved Physician”, for a cost of about $3,000 plus much donated labor. The church was designed by NYC architect R. M. Upjohn and consecrated on July 10, 1879, as a mission. The first rector, the Rev. Charles S. Knapp was also in charge of missions in Bloomingdale, and St. Regis Falls. In June 1880 St. Luke’s Ladies Guild was formed, and continues very actively to this day. Estrella Martin, proprietress of Martin’s Hotel, once prevailed upon Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous Scottish author who stayed in Saranac Lake in the winter of 1887-88 “for the cure,” to attend one of the guild dinners.

Fr. Walter H. Larom’s 20-year tenure starting in 1889 saw a further growth at St. Luke’s. A full-sized organ was installed in 1901. In 1903 St. Luke’s gave up its mission status, and became an independent parish in communion with the Diocese of Albany. The parish hall (designed by J. L. Aspinwall, also served as the first home of the Saranac Lake Free Library) and rectory (designed by W. L. Coulter) were built between 1905 and 1910.

Throughout this period St. Luke’s maintained its connection with those afflicted with tuberculosis. The Church welcomed “curing” visitors to Saranac Lake, and for a number of years there was a special assistant to the rector, assisting with missionary work to the sick. Even today, 50 years after breakthroughs in drug therapy nearly eradicated tuberculosis, St. Luke’s counts among its parishioners people who came to Saranac Lake, and St. Luke’s, to experience the physical and spiritual healing that began with the with the arrival of our own “beloved physician” nearly 125 years ago.

A detailed history is available from the Parish Secretary upon request. (518) 891-3605