Honoring the Past
Racing Faster Than a Speeding Car on the Frozen Hudson
It’s rare to see sailboats on the Hudson this time of year. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sail-powered iceboats carrying famous valley residents like FDR regularly sped across the frozen waters of the river and local lakes as...
Celebrate the Valley’s Dutch Heritage With These Heirloom Cookies
Ever wonder why we call sweet baked discs “cookies” rather than “biscuits” like the Brits? Thank the Dutch.In the brief decades between 1609 — when Henry Hudson, sailing on behalf of the Dutch East India Co., explored the river that...
The Gifts the Hudson Valley Gave Christmas
Of course, Christmas — one of many holiday traditions celebrated today in the Hudson Valley — didn’t originate here. But the region can take credit for turning it into the joyous social occasion that many people celebrate today, a holiday season famous...
Celebrating with a Bang: West Point Foundry Preserve Turns 25
It’s amazing the stories a woodsy little ravine can tell. Over the centuries, the one within West Point Foundry Preserve in Cold Spring has been an Indigenous campsite, an industrial dynamo, a dumping ground and junkyard, a planned hotel, and today...
How Valley Milk Helped Win the Civil War
Before the mid-1850s, Hudson Valley farms kept a cow or two to supply the family’s dairy needs. It took a scandal in New York City to turn the region into a milk mecca — and make it the birthplace of...
The Hudson Valley’s Wildest Ghost Stories
Nobody can resist a good ghost story: That’s why films like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, premiering Nov. 19 and starring Hudson Valley resident Paul Rudd, continue being produced. Our region has contributed its own share of spine-tingling tales. The ones that have...
Get Inspired at These Five Indigenous History Sites
Not long after the last glacier receded from the Hudson Valley 10,000 years ago, the region’s wildlife-filled forests, rich soils, and fish-filled waterways began attracting people. By the time of first European contact, members of Algonquin-speaking tribes — Munsee and...
Valley History Writ Small: Iona Island
On a rainy weekend in May, a few dozen hardy and curious hikers gathered near Route 9W in Bear Mountain State Park. There they met Donald “Doc” Bayne, an environmental educator and historian at Sterling Forest State Park. Bayne was...