Title: Ashokan Reservoir - Wikipedia
Headings: Ashokan Reservoir
Ashokan Reservoir
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Content: Residents of the area to be flooded did not take kindly to the idea, and fought eminent domain proceedings bitterly. They were aided by local lawyers familiar with the checkered history of Catskill land claims. It would be 1940 before the last were settled . The Ashokan Reservoir was constructed between 1907 and 1915, by the New York City Board of Water Supply, by impounding the Esopus Creek. Thousands of acres of farmland were submerged. The impoundment covered twelve communities located in a valley where farming, logging, and quarrying prevailed. Approximately two thousand residents along with roads, homes, shops, farms, churches, and mills were either moved or abandoned, but most of them were torn down. According to Bob Steuding, a humanities professor at Ulster County Community College in Stone Ridge, the area that became the West Basin of the reservoir contained 504 dwellings, nine blacksmith shops, 35 stores, 10 churches, 10 schools, seven sawmills and a gristmill. Several of these communities were re-established in nearby locations. Nearly 12-and-a-half miles (20 km) of a local railroad line (the Ulster and Delaware Railroad) was moved and cemeteries were relocated.