Thomas Clark Durant's Adirondack Railway Company built the line from Saratoga Springs to North Creek between 1865 and 1871, while other ambitions to extend it as far as the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario went unrealized. The line's first locomotive was The General Hancock in 1865. Its backers expected large profits from transporting Adirondack timber and high grade iron ore discovered 30 miles north at Tahawus, but severe financial problems stopped further expansion, and the railroad was later purchased by the Delaware and Hudson Company. For nearly a century the D&H prospered as trains carried tourists, summer residents, and winter recreationists to the Adirondacks, while lumber and locally mined garnet were shipped outward. In 1944, the US government finally extended the railroad to Tahawus, where the freight was not iron ore but valuable titanium urgently needed during WW II. Passenger service ended in 1956 as improved roads drew riders away, and freight operations ceased in 1989.