Woodstock FAQs

A: The world-famous festival that took Woodstock’s name started out here (in the planning stages), but eventually happened sixty-nine miles to the southwest on farmland in Bethel, NY. There had been a long series of summer music festivals in Woodstock, beginning in modern times with Hervey White’s Woodstock/Maverick Festival of 1915. See chapter six of the art book edition of Woodstock History and Hearsay, and also Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival for more about the development of the Woodstock music festivals.

A: Turn to Woodstock’s annual travel guide (see www.woodstockguide.com), which celebrates the many arts, crafts, music, theater and film venues and events in and around Woodstock. It also maps and details a wealth of dining, lodging, shopping, sporting (hiking, camping, swimming, boating, fishing, biking) and other opportunities, services and points of interest offered by our town. Both the travel guide and the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce & Arts assist visitors with a myriad of travel-related questions and bookings.

A: Head due north from Woodstock’s Village Green onto Rock City Road, through the Rock City corners (intersection with Glasco Turnpike) onto Mead’s Mountain Road, to the top of the “clove” or divide between Mt. Guardian and Overlook Mountain. The monastery will be on your left, at a distance of approximately 2.5 miles. According to Anita M. Smith in Woodstock History and Hearsay, Woodstock’s mountains have long been considered sacred ground—home to Manitou, the Native American god who sent down from the sky the first woman, in the shape of a tortoise.

A: In Woodstock or close by there are movies, summer theater, arts and crafts, music, the world’s largest kaleidoscope, miniature golf, swimming, tubing on the Esopus River, train rides, petting zoos, and nature education programs.

A: People really do ask this question. We assure them that animals are all around us in Woodstock—including deer, bears, snakes, birds, opossums, beavers, foxes, wild turkeys, skunks, turtles, and many others.

For more on Woodstock’s animal family, dip into Woodstock History and Hearsay. The book’s index includes this entry (with numbers in bold indicating photos and other images): animals and animal lore: bears, 31, 196, 197, 198; beaver, 25, 25; chipmunks, 198; exhibited at Library Fair, 162; farm animals, 36, 57, 125, 126, 202; foxes, 126, 214; Jackie the donkey, 168–69; moose, 42; panther, 180–81, 197; skunk, 126; stories containing dogs, 24–25, 31, 181, 201–202; Teddy the western pinto, 113, 124, 132, 133; witch in form of deer, 179; wolf, 55