William West Durant

Who was William West Durant?

William West Durant was a designer and developer of camps in the Adirondack Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas, Camp Pine Knot and Sagamore Camp which are National Historic Landmarks. He was the son of Thomas C. Durant, the financier and railroad promoter who was behind the Crédit Mobilier scandal.

William West Durant was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1850. He attended Twickenham School in England and Bonn University in Germany, and traveled extensively as a youth in Europe and Africa. At 24, his father summoned him home from Egypt to help develop the central Adirondacks for tourism.

While working to complete the eastern half of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 as vice-president of the Union Pacific, Dr. Thomas C. Durant formed the Adirondack Company in 1863 from the remains of the Sackets Harbor and Saratoga Railroad Company, which owned 500,000 acres of the central Adirondacks. His goal was to cross the Adirondacks to Canada and the Saint Lawrence River. By 1871, tracks had been laid from Saratoga to North Creek, New York, at which point, financial problems caused the project to stall.