About Mount McGregor

Visitors to Saratoga Springs in the late 1800s could climb aboard a narrow-gauge train at North Broadway and enjoy a scenic 12-mile ride north to the forest-crowned summit of Mount MacGregor, the highest peak south of the Hudson in the Palmertown range of the Adirondacks.

There they found the 150-room Hotel Balmoral, built by Joseph W. Drexel, who also built the railroad. In building the hotel, Drexel moved to McGregor's Western Outlook the smaller Mountain House that Duncan McGregor built in 1876. Drexel would later offer the use of the lodge to General Ulysses Grant to complete his autobiography in the last six weeks of his life in 1885.

On December 1, 1897, the Hotel Balmoral was reduced to ashes in a blaze of mysterious origin, as reported by The Saratogian.

"The entire structure was destroyed by fire early this morning and the heavens for miles around bore brilliant evidence of the fiery fate of this caravansary on the mountain top, 1200 feet higher than Saratoga."

"Of course, nothing could be done to save it, for there are no firefighting facilities on the mountain."

Men had been at work on the building for several days, "painting and otherwise improving it." Lanterns had been used and a "fire had been kept to warm a portion of the lower floor."

"It is possible that spontaneous combustion was generated by some of the oily and turpentine rags used by the painters, but this theory cannot be proved and a good many people would not believe it anyhow."

A few months after the hotel burned, Drexel took apart the railroad and the city's most popular link to the Adirondacks was lost.

The Summit Transformed

Today, the summit of Mount McGregor is Saratoga County's most under-appreciated asset, especially considering the prominent place it once occupied in the life of residents and tourists. This is why, in the scenario we’ve forecasted for 2032, we see Sarina Rao acquiring the property for the Darwin’s Edge Human Transformations Research Center, where the 9G Neural Connector is being developed and tested.

After the Hotel Balmoral burned, other uses were found for the site. While the hotel was gone, the infrastructure remained and that, with new construction, would support over the next century a tuberculosis sanatarium, a veterans’ rest home, and a residence and school for the developmentally disabled. In 1976, the New York State Department of Corrections turned the complex into a minimum-security prison, which ultimately closed in 2014.

In 2017, the Empire State Development Corporation started seriously looking for a developer to purchase the 325 acres that remain surrounded by a 10-foot fence after 750 acres of forest around the prison were opened to the public as an extension of Moreau Lake State Park. ESD offered $8 million toward infrastructure improvements, but that was not enough to persuade serious developers who might be put off by the need to install a new water system and piping for natural gas, as well as the challenge of dealing with three municipalities -- Corinth, Wilton, and Moreau -- in obtaining the necessary permits

It was the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 that made it possible for Sarina in 2029 to build both a factory at Luther Forest to manufacture ThinkPal smart helmets and a high-security world headquarters and research center on McGregor’s summit. This is where her team would achieve the remarkable breakthroughs that would lead to the launch of the 9G Neural Connector, the fastest link between an AI cloud and human brain yet brought to market.

The act provided $52.7 billion for American semiconductor research, development, manufacturing, and workforce development. This included $39 billion in manufacturing incentives, including $13.2 billion in R&D and workforce development, and $500 million to provide for international information communications technology security and semiconductor supply chain activities.

As required by the law, Surina was able to demonstrate significant worker and community investments, including opportunities for small businesses and disadvantaged communities, ensuring semiconductor incentives support equitable economic growth and development.