For much of the nineteenth century, large tracts of Adirondack land were purchased at state tax sales by speculators and timber companies who loggered land, defaulted on the taxes, and let ownership revert back to the state. Tax sales for land from which the marketable timber had been removed attracted few buyers. In the 1870s the price for previously logged Adirondack land fell below seventy cents per acre, the minimum bid acceptable by the state for tax sales. By the time the Forest Preserve was established by the Legislature in 1885, New York State had reacquired over 500,000 acres of largely unsalable Adirondack forest lands.

During the 1890s the market in Adirondack forest land turned into a boom, as New York State actively bought land in the newly established, Adirondack Park and a growing market for wood pulp created a demand for spruce on land that had been logged for lumber twenty years earlier. The region had also become a fashionable tourist destination, and large tracts of land were purchased by developers, resort operators, and wealthy individuals.

In 1893 forty-five private preserves controlled 941,000 acres of Adirondack land. By the turn of the century, the Adirondack League Club owned 79,172 acres containing twenty lakes and ponds. The Ausable Club at St.Huberts owned 25,912 acres in central Essex County including the summits of Mounts Marcy and Dix, as well as Noonmark, Gothics, Haystack and the two Ausable Lakes.