Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Gabriels Sanatorium, opened in 1894 by the Sisters of Mercy, was only the second sanatorium in the area, a very early charitable effort which built on the work of Dr. E. L. Trudeau. Gabriels was the first sanatorium in the Adirondacks to admit black patients. Henry Gabriels served as the Bishop of the Diocese of Ogdensburg from May 5, 1892, to April 23, 1921, when he apparently died in office at age 82.
When it was built, the location was known as Paul Smith's Station, and the sanatorium was not called "Gabriels Sanatorium," a name that does not appear in newspaper archives until 1903. The area acquired the name Gabriels from the sanatorium.
Haakon Engh and Trygve Magnussen were among the Norwegian sailors who came to Saranac Lake; they both died at the Gabriels Sanatorium. Theodora Becker and John McCrank were also patients there. Father Patrick Gallery worked at Gabriels Sanatorium for a time in the early 1920s.
After the sanatorium closed, Paul Smith's College purchased the property in August 1965, as an extension center for their growing Forestry Program. PSC closed the Gabriels campus in 1980, and sold the facility to the State of New York to be used for a minimum security prison.
Camp Gabriels received its first draft of inmates on August 30, 1982. These residents were transferred from the Adirondack Correctional Facility, which had been upgraded from a Camp to a Medium Security Facility. Camp Gabriels operated until 2009, when it was closed by Governor Andrew Cuomo. It has been for sale by the state since then, and was sold in early 2014, according to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.