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13 Open Space and Recreation in the Highlands Daniel Chazin Introduction Situated near the populous Philadelphia–New York–Hartford metropolitan region, the Highlands have long been treasured as a recreational outlet and source of spiritual renewal by the citizens of the region. The preservation of acreage in the Highlands was motivated by the desire to protect open space, preserve scenic beauty, and establish new recreational opportunities. The Highlands also served a pivotal (and often underappreciated) role as the formative ground for a number of ideas and movements that spread throughout the country and had a major impact on our national land preservation and environmental policies. Early Recreational History of the Highlands (1800s) There is evidence of recreational uses of the Highlands as early as the eighteenth century. Some of these were passive uses such as hiking and hunting (i.e., they involved minimal development and left the land relatively undisturbed ), but in the nineteenth century, many facilities were built in the Highlands —in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—for active recreation (involving more intensive development such as hotels, amusement parks, and camps). About 1810, the Heath House—described as “a renowned spa [and] summering place for the elite who desired escape from the cities’ heat”—was established on Schooleys Mountain in Morris County, New Jersey. Another famous hotel at Schooleys Mountain was the Belmont House, whose register “gathered such names as Goulds, Vanderbilts, Astors and Roosevelts.” Schooleys Mountain remained a popular destination until the twentieth century (Washington Township Historical Society 1976). Nearly ninety years later, Lake Hopatcong became a favorite destination for recreation, with rail lines bringing people from the cities to the lake for a day or weekend. The largest lake in New Jersey, Lake Hopatcong was raised Open Space and Recreation in the Highlands 275 by twelve feet about 1830 so it could serve as the single largest source of water for the Morris Canal. When the Central Railroad of New Jersey reached the lake in 1882, it realized the lake’s potential for recreation, and it soon began running excursion trains to Nolan’s Point. The Lackawanna Railroad, whose line touched the southern end of the lake, soon followed. By 1900, there were more than forty hotels and rooming houses at Lake Hopatcong. Of these, the most prestigious was the Hotel Breslin, completed in 1887. The Bertrand Island Amusement Park opened on the lake in 1924. Lake Hopatcong remained a major recreational destination until the Depression of the 1930s and the onset of World War II. The last hotel on the lake was destroyed by fire in 1972. Today, Lake Hopatcong has evolved into a year-round residential community. The Highlands in New York were also developed for recreational uses during the mid-nineteenth century, a period when epidemics were prevalent in New York City. The Hudson Highlands were viewed as a “healthful mountain countryside” that offered “the conditions for good health.” Many New Yorkers flocked to the Highlands—considered to offer the “nearest mountain air”—in an attempt to escape the ravages of the diseases that plagued the city (Dunwell 2008). Cornwall, on the west side of the Hudson, was a popular destination . The well-known writer Nathaniel Parker Willis spent the summer of 1851 at the Sutherland House in Cornwall, and he publicized the benefits of the area. While there were only a handful of boardinghouses in Cornwall when Willis stayed there in 1851, there were dozens of them twenty years later. Another important destination in the Highlands was Cozzens Hotel, which opened on the grounds of West Point in 1849 and moved in 1861 to a promontory on the Hudson in adjacent Highlands Falls (Dunwell 2008). A favorite destination of nineteenth-century hikers in the Hudson Valley was Mount Beacon, which towers over the city of the same name along the shore of the Hudson River. The mountain is named after the beacons lit there during the Revolutionary War to warn the Americans of the approach of British troops. In the 1830s, “the ascent of Mount Beacon was praised as ‘worthwhile’ and easily accomplished ‘by the help of some boy-guide, to be picked up at the ‘Corners’” (Waterman and Waterman 2003). On Memorial Day in 1902, the Mt. Beacon Incline Railway opened, carrying passengers to the crest of the 1,540-foot mountain. The 65 percent grade was the steepest of any inclined railway in the world. Patrons could spend the day at The Casino, a restaurant and dance hall, or even...

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