Looking down the tunnel to the summit elevator, Whiteface Mountain, Wilmington, NY.

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave an address dedicating the Veteran's Memorial Highway to the summit of Whiteface, a project the president had eagerly supported while governor of New York State. During his speech, the president lamented that he would be unable to see the actual summit of the mountain--a childhood polio infection had left the president without the use of his legs, and the steep, 276-ft-ascent ridge path from the parking area at the end of the highway to the summit was unpassable in a wheelchair. Three years later, Whiteface became the first handicapped-accessable mountaintop with the installation of a special elevator and access tunnel bored through some 427 feet of solid granite rock.