Sugar Loaf NY

08/23/2026

One of our Sugar Loaf page admins/original 1970s Sugar Loaf sculptor Rob Wright when he was teaching art At Warwick Valley High School in 1969. This man ALWAYS had STYLE:

08/19/2026

Nice local coverage!

The Sugar Loaf Historical Society has installed its fifth William G. Pomeroy “Legends and Lore” series marker in the competitive grant series, out of 206 nationally; more than any other organization. ...

08/17/2026

Today, while shooting a photo of our new "Calamity Corners" marker, our Historical Society's prez felt like he'd gone back in time when he saw a father and son riding small dirt bikes where he used to practice hill climbs and MX, back in the early '70s.
The dad was promised a throwback photo, here it is: 1973, on a '72 Honda XR75, at Calamity Corners, Sugar Loaf. (That's an era "77 WABC" sticker on the number plate)
Nice meeting you out there, today.

08/14/2026

WHERE in The Loaf is "Calamity Corners"?

Did you know that the Sugar Loaf Historical Society holds the national record for William G. Pomeroy "Legends and Lore " markers placements?

Who knows what calamities occurred here, including one that gave this simple rural intersection national notoriety?

08/11/2026

Regarding the currently misnamed "Creamery Pond" for which continued toxic herbicide treatment is being proposed by property owners surrounding the 76-year old pond, it's key to remember that the parties that promote this approach are often profiting from it:

Given Round Lake’s continuous and unsuccessful two-year treatment with toxic herbicides, I felt compelled to attend the March 14 Monroe Town Board presentation ...

06/18/2026

Intersection of Pine Hill Rd. and "West" (Main) Street, looking East.
The white big building is the Grange Hall, which today is the Cancun Inn Restaurant.
Across the street is a feed store, and to the photo's LH side of it, partially obscured by a tree is the Railroad station, and further to the left is the original Creamery, and the Creamery Pond.
In the distant background, on the photo's left, is what's now known as Knapp's View, appearing to have changed very little since this 1904 photo.
This was long before there was a Wood Rd. across from the Grange building, or a "Bypass" road intersection where "West" (Main) Street bends to the left....and certainly long before the ugly, suburban concrete sidewalk was recently installed on the photo's left foreground side of "West" (Main) Street.

06/17/2026

Endangered frogs of the Loaf!
(Natural History IS part of our NYS-mandated mission)
In 2012, our Sugar Loaf Historical Society's president
joined a research module to track a newly-described species, later named the "Atlantic Coast Leopard Frog".
(Under the Sugar Loaf Historical Society's NYS Education Department incorporation, natural history research, statewide, is foremost among our purposes)
By 2014, SLHS president Jay Westerveld had identified the nation's largest metapopulation of the new species, out on the border of Orange and Sussex counties, as well as a robust populations in Chester, at the Orange county Land Trust's "Birnberg Preserve" near Camp LaGuardia, in the Black Meadow marsh that extends into the Chester Industrial Park, and in the Scotts Meadow marshlands directly across Sugar Loaf's 'Main Street' from the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center.
At the time, the new species hadn't yet received any state protection status, and none was expected, as the NYSDEC rarely "uplists" species for higher levels of protection.
Then, in April of 2025, the NYSDEC announced that the Atlantic Coast Leopard Frog was receiving the state's highest level of protection, listing it as "endangered", and making it the second of only 2 "endangered" frogs in NYS.
(Our Sugar Loaf Historical Society's president, Jay Westerveld, was also responsible for identifying NY's largest, by a wide margin, population of the other "Endangered" frog species, back in the 20th century).
Here's one of The Loaf's own NYS *Endangered* Atlantic Coast Leopard Frogs enjoying its home beneath Sugar Loaf Mountain, here in Scott's Meadow right across from the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center.

06/16/2026

Did you know that the Loaf had a one-room schoolhouse for many decades, spanning from the late 18th into the early 20th century?
The white brick building that you pass at the beginning of Main Street, (At the Chester end) in front of the modern Sugar Loaf firehouse, and diagonally across the street from the Post Office... that was originally the "Sugar Loaf Schoolhouse", similar in shape and size to the "Lake Schoolhouse" just a few miles West off of Bellvale Road, on Lake Station Road ( still in the current day town of Chester).
Some of our Sugar Loaf Historical Society's founders' ancestors were among the first teachers at Sugar Loaf's proud little school.
Today it hosts the "Chester Fire District" Commissioners' offices, with many revisions having been made in its decades of efficient repurposing.
Take a look at the current iteration of the building in the comments below, and you can see where and how it's changed over the years.