Loon Lake is a hamlet in the northern portion of the town of Franklin; it is named after a small lake. Monroe Hall, of Plattsburgh, built a mill on the outlet of Loon Lake about 1840.
Paul Smith got his start as a guide at Loon Lake, and started his first hotel there in 1848, and his second venture, "Hunter's Home", built on 200 acres on the north branch of the Saranac River was nearby. He continued in that location until 1858, when he moved to Lower St. Regis Lake
The area was first reached by railroad in 1887 from Plattsburgh via the Chateaugay Railroad; later, a spur railroad was built from Loon Lake Station, four miles west to the DeBar Mountain tract for hauling timber and pulp-wood. Trains continued to stop at Loon Lake until 1946.
The Loon Lake House, established in 1879, was a grand hotel that catered to "sportsmen and pleasure seekers", built by Ferd W. Chase from Vermont in 1878; it started thirty-one sleeping rooms, but grew to a capacity of 500. The property grew to include a tract of over four thousand acres, a large hotel building, two annexes, and a number of cottages and boat houses, as well as an 18-hole, PGA golf course, a tennis court, pool and billiard parlors, a bowling alley. It went bankrupt in the 1930s.
In the 1930s, Loon Lake, along with surrounding villages, voted to send their high school age students to Saranac Lake High School.
