Sugar Loaf, New York

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Sugar Loaf is a hamlet in Orange County, New York.

[edit] History

Sugar Loaf was founded in the 1730s as a waypoint along King's Highway, providing supplies and horses to travellers. It draws its name from its similarity to a peak in Northern England. By the early 19th century, Sugar Loaf was a Saloon community. Hambletonian 10, the sire of all American standardbred horses, was born in Sugar Loaf in 1848. America's first murder-for-hire occurred on "Calamity Corners", at the intersection of Pine Hill and Hambletonian Roads.

Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, and for most of the 20th century, Sugar Loaf remained a quiet, pastoral hamlet with renown for bawdy Apple-Jack saloons and later, during Prohibition, speakeasies for the enjoyment of countless jazz-age revelers en route to the Glenmere estate on Pine Hill Road. In the 1970s, young craftsmen and artisans revived the traditions of handmade arts and crafts and established Sugar Loaf as Orange County's center for hippie culture. Today, the town is largely based around these trades, with traditional woodworking, candle making, pottery, leatherworking, jewelry and stained glass art, as well as restaurants, saloons, health food stores, and galleries of photography, sculpture, and painting.

[edit] Geography

Sugar Loaf is a hamlet of roughly six miles' length and five miles' width. 
It extends from Chester, NY's Durland Hill, near the Chester Library, 
West into the Town Of Warwick, into the hamlet of Bellvale. 
See 1850s map at www.sugarloafhistoricalsociety.com 

There is a Post Office at the NE end of the Village.
The Village of Sugar Loaf lies within the Town of Chester,
and hence shares it's area code and exchange, 845, 469.
The greater Hamlet extends into Warwick, as well 845, 986.

The Hamlet of Sugar Loaf predates the later Town Of Chester,
 and it was originally administered under the Town Of Warwick.
  Proponents of the annexation of Sugar Loaf back to the more progressive,
 artistic and historical town of Warwick cite this precedent administration.

[edit] External links

• Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce
• Sugar Loaf Community Foundation
• Sugar Loaf Historical Society
• Sugar Loaf Community Committee

Coordinates: 41°19′15″N, 74°17′08″W