The Town of Inlet and USDA Rural Development hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on Sunday, July 1, to celebrate the completion of a new dock on the shores of Fourth Lake. In 2011, Inlet received a USDA Rural Businesses Entrepreneurship Grant (RBEG) for $83,450 to rebuild the dock at the Woods Inn, a historic hotel and restaurant. In 2003, Rural Development awarded an $860,000 loan through USDA’s Business and Industry Loan Program to the Woods Inn.

State and local officials gathered lakeside at the Woods Inn on Sunday to celebrate the town’s new addition. The dock will increase tourism to the area and promote local emerging businesses. Not only will it provide boat parking for Woods Inn customers, it will provide short term public docking and can accommodate larger vessels, such as Old Forge Lake Cruises’ Clearwater, which provided tours of Fourth Lake during the dock opening celebration.

The Woods Inn began as Hess Camp, built in 1894 by Fred Hess. Hess owned several other successful hotels in the area including a lodge on Cedar Island, also situated on Fourth Lake.  Philo Wood, who managed two hotels for Hess, purchased Hess Camp in 1898 and re-named it The Wood Hotel.

Over the next 20 years, The Wood Hotel underwent expansion, tripling the number of rooms and adding new cottages to the hotel grounds. In the early years, canvas tents on platforms, similar to the ones on the property now, provided even more rooms for summer lodgers.

Philo Wood enjoyed a long run of success, filling The Wood Hotel with guests who arrived by steamboat with trunks and stayed for months of relaxation and comfort. This dock was an asset to the Town of Inlet back then and will now, once again, benefit the tourism business in the area.

The RBEG program is a broad based program that reaches to the core of rural development in a number of ways. Examples of eligible fund use include acquisition or development of land, easements, or rights of way; construction, conversion or renovation of buildings, plants, machinery, equipment, access streets and roads, parking areas, and utilities; pollution control and abatement; capitalization of revolving loan funds including funds that will make loans for start ups and working capital; training and technical assistance; distance adult learning for job training and advancement; rural transportation improvement; and project planning. Any project funded under the RBEG program should benefit small and emerging private businesses in rural areas.

USDA Rural Development’s mission is to deliver programs in a way that will support increasing economic opportunity and improve the quality of life of rural residents. As a venture capital entity, Rural Development provides equity and technical assistance to finance and foster growth in homeownership, business development, and critical community and technology infrastructure. Further information on rural programs is available by visiting Rural Development’s web site at www.rurdev.usda.gov/ny.