The Elevator Inside Whiteface Mountain

A Road up the Mountain

Plans for a road to Whiteface’s summit developed over several decades. In 1929, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt took part in a ceremony marking the project. When he returned to dedicate the completed highway in 1935, he was president.

Crews built the road with horses, steam shovels, and other equipment, working around the Adirondacks’ short construction season. Stone walls followed the curves, and hairpin turns brought the route toward the upper slopes.

The highway provided access to a parking area roughly 300 feet below the peak. The Castle stood near the end of the road, but reaching the summit still meant climbing the remaining rocky ridge.

The Last Part of the Climb

An elevator opened in 1938. To reach it, visitors passed through a tunnel approximately 425 feet long, then traveled more than 270 feet up a shaft to the summit level. The arrangement put much of the final approach underground.

The road project also prompted debate over how much construction belonged on the peak. A proposed veterans’ memorial tower would have risen above the summit. Governor Herbert Lehman vetoed the plan in 1934, arguing that it would damage the mountain’s appearance.

The proposed tower was never built. The highway retained its memorial role, with the Castle beside the parking area and the final climb completed by the ridge path or the underground lift.

At the upper parking area, the routes separate. One heads toward the exposed ridge. The other leads through the tunnel entrance and into the rock.