New York's version of Los Angeles's famous La Brea Tar Pits? Sand Dunes in the city of Albany? Frederic Church's Olana, a gift of the Ice Age? A Niagara Falls in Philmont? Mastodons in Greenville? The Vanderbilt Mansion and Springwood, FDR's home in Hyde Park, at risk? Join Professors Robert and Johanna Titus on a tour of the Hudson Valley and see this familiar region with new eyes the eyes of geologists who see a half-mile-thick sheet of ice grinding its way down the valley and overtopping even the highest mountains. With the Tituses as your guides, -see- an ancient Manhattan high and dry with the Atlantic shoreline 100 miles to the southeast, North/South Lake State Park as a giant and frigid -waterslide park,- and the immense expanse of Glacial Lake Albany stretching the entire length of the Hudson Valley with its deltas that would become the sites of some of America's most famous estates. Finally, witness the cataclysmic flood that cascaded through the valley at the end of the Ice Age as a great ice dam broke and a gigantic wall of water swept down the valley. The Tituses take the reader through the Catskills, the Shawangunks, the Taconics, along the banks of the Hudson River, to Bash Bish Falls and Lake Taghkanic to all those unique and beautiful places that make the Hudson Valley -the landscape that defined America- and demonstrate that all this rose phoenix-like from the devastation caused by the slow, inexorable advance of a grinding, half-mile-thick bulldozer of ice and the raging flood that followed its retreat. The result of these devastating events is the landscape that inspired the Hudson River School painters and America's pioneer landscape architects gifts of the Ice Age, and the familiar landscape we enjoy today.

From the dinosaurs and the glaciers to the first native peoples and the first European settlers, from Dutch and English Colonial rule to the American Revolution, from the slave society to the Civil War, from the robber barons and bootleggers to the war heroes and the happy rise of craft beer pubs, the Hudson Valley has a deep history. The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years chronicles the Valley's rich and fascinating history and charms. Often funny, sometimes personal, always entertaining, this collection of essays offers a unique look at the Hudson Valley's most important and interesting people, places, and events.

From the dinosaurs and the glaciers to the first native peoples and the first European settlers, from Dutch and English Colonial rule to the American Revolution, from the slave society to the Civil War, from the robber barons and bootleggers to the war heroes and the happy rise of craft beer pubs, the Hudson Valley has a deep history. The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years chronicles the Valley’s rich and fascinating history and charms. Often funny, sometimes personal, always entertaining, this collection of essays offers a unique look at the Hudson Valley’s most important and interesting people, places, and events.

The Hudson Valley of New York has a geologic history spanning over a billion years. Local geology professor Steven Schimmrich has written an interesting and accessible account for anyone who's ever wondered about the deep time history of this beautiful area. Covering more than geology, this book also includes tangents on the history of life, human and economic history of the Valley, and the importance of the Hudson River in the modern-day environmental movement.

Illustrations, maps, and text - distilled from the best research on the Hudson's habitats and history - invite you to explore the river yourself.

Lighthouses were built on the Hudson River in New York between 1826 to 1921 to help guide freight and passenger traffic. One of the most famous was the iconic Statue of Liberty. This fascinating history with photos will bring the time of traffic along the river alive. Set against the backdrop of purple mountains, lush hillsides, and tidal wetlands, the lighthouses of the Hudson River were built between 1826 and 1921 to improve navigational safety on a river teeming with freight and passenger traffic. Unlike the towering beacons of the seacoasts, these river lighthouses were architecturally diverse, ranging from short conical towers to elaborate Victorian houses. Operated by men and women who at times risked and lost their lives in service of safe navigation, these beacons have overseen more than a century of extraordinary technological and social change. Of the dozens of historic lighthouses and beacons that once dotted the Hudson River, just eight remain, including the iconic Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor's great monument to freedom and immigration, which served as an official lighthouse between 1886 and 1902. Hudson River Lighthouses invites readers to explore these unique icons and their fascinating stories.