Luckily for me, I ran into Judy and Marc Wanner last week at a Historic Saranac Lake event hosted by the Garbe family at their beautiful camp on Upper Saranac.

Marc is the author of a super Wiki site for HSL. He is onto a story about a sanatorium that operated in Rainbow Lake up until 1930. I asked him to fill me in on the details so he sent me the following e-mail:

“Wardner’s Rainbow Inn was built in 1862 on land James Wardner had acquired in 1855 on Rainbow Lake. By 1910, it had been sold to the Independent Order of Foresters. They built a sizeable sanatorium there that operated until 1930, at which point the building vanishes from the newspapers. We know roughly where it was and that it was pretty big.

“The main building was 90 by 45 feet, equipped with steam heat and electric lighting; it was an eighth of a mile from the New York Central’s Rainbow Station, which is about where the post office is today. There were nine-foot deep porches running the length of three sides of the building. The property included a dairy barn, hog barn, ice house, and a carriage house that also housed farm equipment.

“So it seems odd to me that a building of that size would not have some newsworthy uses, though maybe thanks to the Great Depression it just sat empty until it rotted away? It seems like it should have been out Hull’s Road somewhere.

“Anyway, it’s an interesting story, and it seems to be considerably less well known than Trudeau, Gabriels and Stony Wold. I’d love to figure out what happened to it.”

I have some of the answers to his questions supplied by my cousin, Francis Hogan, former U.S. postmaster in Rainbow Lake and now, I believe the mayor of Rainbow Lake.

He remembers the san building being torn down and it was located, as Marc said, only a short distance from the railroad depot. He also remembers a concrete sidewalk running from the depot right to the front door of the sanatorium.

Today, there is an open space, like a lawn, where the san was located right across the road (county Route 60) from that new home built by Jim and Robin Law.

Francis said the Order of Foresters, as Marc thought, ran into financial difficulties and sold off the three sanatoriums they owned. Along the Rainbow Lake san, they had the same facilities in California and in Cornwall, Canada.

But here is the big news. That farm, with buildings looking as though they could be used in a movie set, was purchased by Francis’ mom and dad, Bill and Mae Buckley Hogan.

Francis’ grandmother, Esther Keegan Hogan and my grandfather, Billy Keegan, were sister and brother.

I love these family connections. Mae Buckley Hogan was a sister to George Buckley, who married Margaret Hogan, Bill Hogan’s sister.

Francis said the barn had burned down while still owned by the san and was immediately rebuilt. I was in those building many times as a kid when our parents visited and they were pretty fancy compared to our farm on Norman Ridge.

But wait, there’s more. Marc, there is a slim chance that you may be able to find pictures of the san. Joan Wardner and her sister still own a home in Rainbow Lake and Francis said they visit there every summer.

Also Mary Jane Higgins, one of Francis’ best friends, who lives in Vermont, has a picture of the original train station, identical to the station that was in Gabriels. The Rainbow station burned down, ignited by a spark from a coal fire.

Francis, who sent Mary Jane the picture, because her father is in it, thinks she may have other pictures. Or perhaps, he said, the Wardner sisters may have pictures of the san.

So, Marc, just call Francis at 518-327-3106 and get the rest of the story.