• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Albany-Hudson Electric Trail Exhibit & Lecture in Hudson

April 18, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Albany-Hudson Railway trolleys dropping passengers off at "Electric Park" amusement park on Kinderhook Lake at Niverville courtesy Nassau Free LibraryThe Hudson Area Library, in partnership with Columbia Friends of the Electric Trail, have announced an exhibit on the interpretative panels along the Electric Trail in Columbia and Rensselaer counties, set to open on Saturday, May 7th. The exhibition runs through June 30th.

An opening reception will be held from 3 to 5 pm in the Community Room of the library, and will feature an introduction by Matt Kierstead, who provided the documentation and interpretive services for the Electric Trail panels, to the history and conversion of this train line.

As part of the Library’s local history series, Kierstead will return on Thursday, May 26th, from 6 to 7:30 pm to discuss this project in more detail in his talk “Trolleys, Trails and Tales: Interpreting the Empire State Trail’s Albany-Hudson Electric Trail.” This program will be held in person at the Community Room of the library.

The May 26th illustrated talk will look at the corporate, social, and technological history of the “Albany-Hudson Fast Line” electrified high-speed interurban railway in Columbia and Rensselaer counties. It also tells the story of Hudson River Valley Greenway’s conversion of the surviving trolley line right-of-way into the Empire State Trail’s “Albany-Hudson Electric Trail” segment. Finally, Kierstead will discuss the process of developing the trailside interpretive signage that explains the history of the railway, the communities it passed through, and historical features visible from the trail to the trail’s users.

In addition to the interpretative panels, this exhibition also features images from Larry Gobrecht’s collection on the Electric Park in Kinderhook. The Electric Park was an attraction on Kinderhook Lake that was along the trolley line that ran from Albany to Hudson from 1901 to 1920. Gobrecht retired as historian in the Recreation and Historic preservation office of the New York State Office of Parks and currently serves on the board of the Friends of Taconic State Park. The Gobrecht family has generously donated the rights to the digital images of this unique collection for use by the library.

Matt Kierstead is owner/proprietor of Milestone Heritage Consulting, a Hudson Valley business providing documentation and interpretation services for historic engineering, industrial, and transportation resources for clients including government agencies, private developers, and the heritage tourism industry. His focus areas include the history and technology of bridges, mining and quarrying, metallurgy, mineral processing, power generation, canal and rail transportation, and public utilities.

Kierstead has completed over three hundred projects throughout the northeastern United States including historical resource surveys, National Register of Historic Places determinations of eligibility and nominations, Historic American Buildings Survey/Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) and state-level documentations, Superfund site cleanup consultation, and public history interpretation projects.

The Hudson Area Library is located at 51 North Fifth Street in Hudson. For more information visit their website or call (518) 828-1792.

Photo of Albany-Hudson Railway trolleys dropping passengers off at “Electric Park” amusement park on Kinderhook Lake at Niverville courtesy Nassau Free Library.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: Events, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Columbia Friends of the Electric Trail, Electric Trail, Hudson Area Library

About Editorial Staff

Stories written under the Editorial Staff byline are drawn from press releases and other notices. Submit your news to New York Almanack here.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Help Finish Our 2022 Fundraising

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Bill Wirz on Timber Framing Workshops at Finger Lakes Museum
  • Bob Meyer on State Rebuilding of High Peaks Wilderness Roads Challenged in Court
  • John Warren on Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York
  • Willem Bustraan (Amsterdam) on Restless Roamer: James Smithson’s Final Journey
  • Kim on Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York
  • Bob Meyer on Poetry: Stairway from Heaven
  • Carol Drew-Peeples on Manhattan Street Names Tied to Slavery Listed from A to Z
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Poetry: Stairway from Heaven
  • Ellen Brown on How Does A Land Trust Protect A Watershed? One Parcel At A Time
  • Nell Rapport on Transforming The Niagara Falls Experience

Recent New York Books

battle of harlem hights
Ladies Day at the Capitol
voices of wayne county
CNY Snowstorm book front cover
The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era
Expanded Second Edition of Echoes in These Mountains
historic kingston book
Buffalo Sports cover re-re-sized.indd
With an Ax and a Rifle Vol I

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide