rail transportation finally became more affordable, and ended its days in 1904 after a brief period carrying Rosendale cement. The former terminal port area for the canal is now Kingston's Rondout-West Strand Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Reservoir era In the mid-20th century, the stream would find another important use. Naturalist John Burroughs had anticipated it when he explored the upper headwaters with a friend early in the century, writing in his essay "A Bed of Boughs" of the purity of the stream's waters and its benefits for both man and fish: Starting in 1915 with Ashokan Reservoir, New York City had been expanding its water supply system with reservoirs in the Catskills. In 1937 it began construction of Merriman Dam near Lackawack, which would soon be flooded forever to allow the growing city to tap the pure waters Burroughs had written about. Those waters began to reach city taps in 1951, and the reservoir itself was completed three years later. Today, via the Delaware Aqueduct, and the connections it has via the Neversink Aqueduct to the Neversink, Pepacton and Cannonsville reservoirs to the west supplementing the upper Rondout's drainage, it supplies half the city's daily water draw. See also List of rivers of New York List of crossings of Rondout Creek MV Rip Van Winkle References External links Rivers of New York (state) Tributaries of the Hudson River Rivers of Ulster County, New York Rivers of Sullivan County, New York