Walden, New York, United States

🇺🇸 Walden is the largest of three villages of the Town of Montgomery in Orange County, New York, United States. Walden is part of the Poughkeepsie−Newburgh−Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York−Newark−Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.

The precursor to the village began in the early 18th century as a mill town along the Wallkill River. One miller, Jacob Walden, was so successful the village that incorporated in the mid-19th century took its name from him. Later, it would be the village's three knife manufacturers that brought it growth and prosperity. They are gone today, but other industrial concerns remain.

History The first Europeans began to arrive in the region around the 1650s, and began establishing permanent settlements in the area by the early 18th century.

The area around present-day Walden was purchased in 1736 by Alexander Kidd, and settlers of Scots-Irish, English and German descent started arriving not long afterwards. It was the first settlement west of the Wallkill River, known at the time as Kidd's Town. In 1813, an entrepreneur from New York City named Jacob Treadwell Walden began purchasing land on both sides of the Wallkill River, with plans to develop a manufacturing settlement along the River. He convinced some of his business partners to finance the construction of wool mills on the river, attracted by the Great Falls as a source of power and the railroad connections at nearby Maybrook. He dammed the Wallkill above the falls, creating a power station that remains in use today, and his mill was a success. By the 1820s, his mill became a notable regional producer of cotton and woolen cloth. Wool-makers followed as the Industrial Revolution picked up steam and the growing population centre became known instead as Walden's Mills. The area became a significant local producer of woolen products by the 1840s.

In 1855, Walden was formally incorporated as a village.

Most of Walden's wool industry failed a few decades after it began, and people in the village sought to replace the mills with a different source of employment. The village began encouraging knife manufacturers to relocate from nearby Dutchess County to vacant mills. In 1856, the New York Knife Company moved to an idle cotton factory in Walden. The company would go on to make much of the cutlery employed by the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War.

After the war, other knifemakers came to Walden. In the 1870s, the Walden Knife Company set up a factory in the village, and Schrade Cutlery built a factory in Walden in 1904. The village soon became colloquially known as "Little Sheffield" and "Knifetown". During this time, rail service arrived to Walden, facilitating passenger service and increased mobility for local manufactured goods. Other industrial concerns, making products as diverse as engines and women's underwear, also set up shop.

In the early 1890s, President Grover Cleveland lowered tariffs on many imported goods, including knives. Competitively priced German cutlery began to flood the American market, and together with the Panic of 1893 and the economic slowdown that followed for several years, the knife companies and their owners went heavily into debt and it looked for a while as if they might not survive.

But in 1897 President William McKinley, a personal friend of Thomas Wilson Bradley of the U.S. Knife Company, pushed through the Dingley Tariff that restored the status quo ante. The knifemakers returned to profitability and were able to pay off their debts; and in gratitude Bradley had a statue of McKinley erected that remains in Walden today.

Throughout the early 1900s, the village experienced a period of substantial growth. Dense mixed-used development flourished in the village's downtown, often taking form of residences above shops. Single-family homes also proliferated throughout the village, typically on relatively small lot sizes. During this time, numerous government buildings were constructed.

In the 1910s the facilities at the dam began to be primarily used for power and less for industry.

Walden's Main Street was the site of an active retail trade which included Millspaugh's Furniture as well as Roosa's Jewelers, both still in business. Lustig's Department Store, established by Carl Lustig in 1883, was the mainstay of Main Street until its closing in 1986.

The Depression was hard on many of the village's economic concerns, but the knifemakers persisted. However, after World War II they gradually became less prominent and moved as the rail connections they had depended on were replaced by trucking on the growing Interstate Highways. In 1957, Schrade Cutlery (renamed to Imperial Schrade) closed down its factory, and moved to nearby Ellenville. Schrade was the last company making knives in the village, and closed down its factory after a fire. It continued production in Ellenville until 2004. The ruins of the factory still stand behind the Thruway Markets hypermarket.

Apart of knifemaking, Walden became a regional centre for the garment industry from the 1930s through the 1950s.

As car dependency increased in the region during the late 20th century, aided by the construction of the New York State Thruway system and Interstate 84, downtown businesses struggle to compete with car-oriented retail centres throughout the region.

Throughout the 1990s, the village was the subject of an ongoing joke by a disc jockey at the nearby WPDH-FM radio station, who would constantly joke about Walden being a poor, redneck, and inbred town. Some villagers interviewed by The New York Times on the matter claimed the long-running joke hurt their civic esteem, and even real estate values in the village.

From 1995 until 2016, Walden was the headquarters of the Big Apple Circus.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 2.0 square miles (5.2 km²), of which 2.0 square miles (5.2 km²) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km²) (3.9%) is water.

The village's most notable geographical feature is the Wallkill River, which flows from the south to the north across the village and divides one-third of it from the rest. Within the eastern portion, Tin Brook, the Wallkill's major right tributary in New York, meanders across as well, forming part of the northern village boundary. There are two waterfalls and dams on the river within the village limits, known as the Great and Little Falls; and two auto bridges, the "high" (formally, the Walden Veterans' Memorial Bridge, which carries NY 52 through the village as West Main Street) and "low" (Oak Street) bridges).

The Wallkill passes through a small gorge between the two dams and loses approximately 60 feet (18 m) of elevation in the process. The surrounding topography in the village is, correspondingly, gentle rolling hills of this section of the Great Appalachian Valley between the higher rises of the Shawangunk Ridge, visible to the west from some sections of the village, and the Hudson Highlands to the southwest. The highest elevation is roughly 520 feet (160 m) above sea level along Overlook Road at the village's western boundary; the lowest is 260 feet (79 m) along the Wallkill at the northern village line.

Walden's growth began near the mills and later the knife-making plants, particularly the New York Knife Company, located on the steep east bank of the river just south of the Veterans' Memorial Bridge; the building's footings are still visible on the slope. The central business district of the village is today a few blocks to the east, along Main Street. Just to its south is the village hall and the main square. East Main Street, the section of 52 from the 208 junction to the village line, has seen many newer businesses locate there, including a small strip mall. There is also some scattered commercial presence along Orange Avenue (208 south of the junction), primarily professional office space. This parallels the village's remaining industrial presence along the railroad line to the east, which at its northern terminus abuts downtown to the southeast. Walden's other major commercial area is the Thruway Markets complex located along the river north of Oak Street, just south of the remains of the Walden Knife Company.

On the southern side of the village is the Fox Hill Bruderhof Community where about 250 community members live and work in their factories and the Plough Publishing House.

There are two schools, public Walden Elementary School on Orchard Street and Most Precious Blood Catholic school near the northern village line along Ulster Avenue. The village includes public parks and a walking trail. • Bradley Park - along Albany Ave, on the high ground between Thruway Market and Ulster Ave (Rte 208), contains 4 baseball & 1 softball field (Home to the Walden Little League), 2 tennis courts, a playground, and a skateboard park. • Wooster Grove - along East Main St (Rte 52), surrounded by the Tin Brook, offers a large playground, indoor & outdoor basketball courts, a bandstand, an ice rink; the village's teen centre is also here. • James Olley Park - at the end of Sherman Ave, includes a manufactured beach with public swimming and fishing, a small playground, a picnic grove, unimproved walking trails, and a summer recreation camp. • Alfred Place Park - the only park on the west side includes a small playground and basketball court. • Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail - beginning at Woosters Grove, a 3.22-mile (5.18 km)-long paved walking and biking trail linking the village to the hamlet of Wallkill in Ulster County.

Much of the remainder of the village is residential, with houses tending from modest and small near downtown, the river and railroad, to more expansive homes (such as the Victorians along the west side of Ulster Avenue) being found on the hills, newer development near the south-western and eastern borders with the town, and 6 small apartment and townhouse complexes.

A large tract along the river south of the power station had remained undeveloped until very recently. A small area between McKinley Avenue, South Mountgomery Street and the river remains open, used for NYSEG's purposes. On the other end of the village, the sewage treatment plant is also in the middle of an undeveloped area.