Champlain Valley Walking Tours
As part of the 2009 Lake Champlain Quadricentennial celebration, Adirondack Architectural Heritage presented a new tour series, Architecture of the Champlain Valley. The series featured half-day walking tours of eight towns along the lake, led by experienced and professional guides.
If you are interested in exploring the architecture, community development and rich cultural heritage of your community and the region as a whole, please download the handouts for each of the tours.
Funding for this tour series was made possible by the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership.
Willsboro
One of the oldest settlements in Essex County, Willsboro has a rich history connected to agriculture, paper industry, stone quarrying, shipbuilding, and tourism.
Willsboro handout
Keeseville
Keeseville is a town with a long history as an industrial community that manufactured products from wood and iron ore using the power of the Ausable River.
Keeseville handout
Essex
Essex prospered during much of the 19th century as a shipping and ship building port, and today, as a National Historic Register District, contains many wonderful examples of various styles of architecture.
Essex handout
Elizabethtown
As the county seat, Elizabethtown boasts a large historic government complex, and a number of buildings that reflect the town's social, political and economic importance.
Elizabethtown handout
Port Henry
Port Henry and the surrounding town of Moriah have the longest industrial history of any community in the Champlain Valley, beginning with iron mining and manufacturing in the late 1700s.
Port Henry handout
Ticonderoga
Historically associated with military events, Ticonderoga developed as an industrial town connected to paper manufacturing, and today offers more than three dozen buildings listed on the National Register.
Ticonderoga handout
Wadhams and Westport
The hamlet of Wadhams lies just north of Westport on the Boquet River, and was once known for its industrial pursuits which supported the outlying farms. Though industry and agriculture played a role in the development of Westport, it has gained most of its identity as a summer resort town.
Wadhams Tour starts at 10:00
Westport Tour starts at 1:00
Wadhams & Westport handout
Ironville
In the town of Crown Point, the settlement of Ironville is the site of the Penfield Homestead Museum and was once the center of a thriving iron industry.
Ironville handout