Lyon Mountain, NY

Lyon Mountain is a hamlet and census-designated place located in Dannemora in Clinton County, New York, United States. The 2020 census counted 421 residents. The northern slopes of Lyon Mountain are in the southern part of the community, with the 3,840-foot summit to the south in Saranac. The Lyon Mountain Correctional Facility, a minimum security prison, was located in the community. Republic Steel Corporation was one of the last major steel firms to use low-phosphorus Adirondack magnetites, operating the Chateaugay Ore & Iron Company from 1939 to 1967. The Chateaugay mine was one of the deepest commercial iron ore mines in the United States, with stopes as much as 3,500 feet below the surface.

The short version is that Lyon Mountain carries an earlier story into the places people know and use now. That is the local read on Lyon Mountain: its past remains attached to the places people use now. The facility closed in 2011, and has been purchased by a Canadian who has mined sand for hydrofracking from the site. The hamlet is named after Nathaniel Lyon, who moved to the base of the mountain that also bears his name in 1803 and died circa 1850. Lyon was a relative of General Nathaniel Lyon.