[2] There is a detailed, animated, three-dimensional model of the carry railroad at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake.

The Marion River played an important part in the development of the central Adirondacks.

Both Blue Mountain Lake and Raquette Lake were acquired by Thomas Clark Durant, developer of the Union Pacific Railroad, as part of the building of the Adirondack Railway to North Creek in the 1870s.

W.W. Durant dammed the river at the Utowana end in 1879, and operated a sawmill there; this also allowed steamboats to travel most of its length.

Efforts to save one of the steam locomotives from the railroad in 1947 led to the creation of the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, where the engine may still be seen.