Blood's Hotel/ Riverside Inn (demolished)

In 1860, Orlando Blood opened Blood's Hotel in Saranac Lake. Blood first leased it from John J. Miller, who had built it. He bought it along with eighty acres in 1865 for $2,115. In 1886, lumberjack and guide Wallace Murray purchased the hotel and changed the name to the Riverside Inn. The Riverside Inn contained 61 bedrooms, exclusive of those occupied by family and servants. Mark Twain occasionally sat on the shaded veranda. The dining room could seat 130, a large accommodation for the time. As the tide of TB patients arriving in the village grew, the hotel was used to accommodate patients when they first came to the village. The Riverside Inn was torn down in the 1930s after the Great Depression greatly reduced the number of tourists.