The 18^th Cauliflower Festival will be held Saturday, Sept. 24 from 11 to 4 in Margaretville’s Village Park, sponsored by the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce.

Pure Catskills, the Catskill Forest Association and the Historical Society of Middletown will be key components of the family-friendly festival which also features many community organizations, vendors and artisans. 

Food – from barbecue and cauliflower specialties, to take-home produce – will top the festival ‘menu’.

Performing from noon to 3 will be a favorite from past festivals, blues guitarist and vocalist Mike Hermann.

In the CFA Tent of Knowledge, Dr. Michael Kudish, noted Catskills’ forest historian, will speak at 12:30 on “Sawmills, piano bars, log roads, sugar maple distribution, and first growth forest.” At 1:30, the NYS DEC’s Bryan Ellis will discuss “Forest carbon and the impacts of climate change on NY forests,” followed at 2:30 by Lindsay Baxter of Cornell University on “Lyme and other tick-borne diseases of the Northeast.”

Agricultural and community history exhibits can be found in the HSM History Tent. This year’s featured display will focus on farm-based boarding houses. At 1:30 p.m., folklorist Ginny Scheer will lead a conversation on that topic with several individuals whose families either operated or visited these once ubiquitous tourist havens. HSM will also share photos and artifacts from the cauliflower growing industry which flourished in the Catskills from the 1890s through the 1950s.

The Catskills Conquest Endurance Run for vintage automobiles will again make the Cauliflower Festival one of the stops on their route from Mt. Tremper along the Catskill Mountains Scenic Byway. The run commemorates a 1903 test of endurance among early car makers and drivers who traversed the Catskills along what is now NYS Route 28. Cars are due to arrive around 11 a.m.

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will hold another of its popular History Hikes Sunday, Oct. 2 when historians John Duda and Diane Galusha will lead a walk on the former Ulster & Delaware (U&D) Railroad tracks from Highmount to Pine Hill.

Reservations are $10 per person and are required as attendance is limited. Call 845-586-4973 to save your spot. This is not a developed rail trail and the terrain is uneven and wet in places. Appropriate footwear is a must. Heavy rain cancels.

The 3.3 mile round trip walk begins at 1 p.m. in the parking lot opposite the Highmount Post Office just off Route 28. It will traverse the famous Double Horseshow Curve and will visit the ruins of the Crystal Spring Water Company’s massive rail-side loading dock.

Participants will hear about Highmount’s heyday in the era of the elegant Grand Hotel and the estates of wealthy notables. They’ll learn how pure spring water was bottled and shipped to New York City long before the city built its own reservoirs to supply the masses. And they’ll see first-hand how surveyors, engineers and laborers designed and built the U&D up and over Pine Hill, elevation 2,000 feet. 

That climb was a special feature of the U&D, eagerly anticipated by passengers on the ride over the divide between Ulster and Delaware Counties. A 1904 railroad booklet included this description: 

“The hissing locomotives plunge boldly into the final climb. The air-line distance to the summit (from Pine Hill Station) is not over half-a-mile but there are 226 feet to climb and the track curves sharply around the arcs of a double horseshoe for three times that distance. You see the engines laboring heavily as they almost double up on the train, and the front end of the coach is visibly higher than the rear.”

Photographs of trains navigating this section, as well as images of both the Grand Hotel and Pine Hill Stations, the Crystal Spring Water Company and of some of the hotels and estates in Highmount will be shared on the hike, which is estimated to take three hours.

Family Fun Day at the Old Stone Schoolhouse in Dunraven, two miles west of Margaretville, will be held Saturday, Aug. 20 from 10 to 3. In case of heavy rain, the free event will be held Sunday.

While there is no admission fee, donations towards the upkeep of this historic site – former District #10 — are most welcome. Family Fun Day is sponsored by the Old Stone School Association and the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM).

There will be lessons with costumed teachers through the day. The 20-minute lessons, conducted in the two-century-old one-room school where grades 1 through 8 were taught the three Rs for 140 years, will include arithmetic, reading and writing.

Youngsters will use slates to practice ciphering and will stitch their own copy book to demonstrate penmanship and spelling. They may even be asked to read a poem aloud. Fun classroom games like “Button, button, who’s got the button?” will engage the students.

“Recess” will include old fashioned outdoor games like hoop rolling, catch, tag and three-legged races. Quieter activities, like butter making, cat’s cradle, checkers, marbles and dominoes will be offered beneath a tent.  Nature walks in the immediate vicinity of the school may prompt artistic activities as well.

Traditional music will be performed by Eli and Lillian Taylor.

Visitors are invited to bring a lunch and picnic on the grounds. They can ring the school bell, see what it was like to carry pails of water from the pump, and imagine going to the outhouse when nature called (it still works!).

The 1820 structure located adjacent to the former Delaware & Northern Railroad tracks, will be open all day. Exhibits will highlight its colorful history as well as the stories of some of Middletown’s other one-room schools. The Stone Schoolhouse is on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

Coloring books will be offered for sale, and raffle tickets for a basket of Catskills products will be available to purchase, proceeds benefitting the Historical Society.