Editing Walden, New York (section)

==History==
[[Image:Jacob Walden House.jpg|thumb|left|[[Jacob T. Walden Stone House|18th-century stone house]] Jacob Walden later lived in.]]

The first Europeans began to arrive in the region around the 1650s, and began establishing permanent settlements in the area by the early 18th century.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Walden History {{!}} The Village of Walden |url=https://villageofwalden.org/residents/walden-history |access-date=March 30, 2024 |website=villageofwalden.org}}</ref>

The area around present-day Walden was purchased in 1736 by Alexander Kidd, and [[settler]]s of [[Scotch-Irish American|Scots-Irish]], [[English people|English]] and [[German people|German]] descent started arriving not long afterwards.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} It was the first settlement west of the Wallkill River, known at the time as Kidd's Town.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}
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[[File:Walden, Orange County, N.Y. 1887. LOC 75694861.jpg|thumb|[[Perspective map]] of Walden with list of landmarks from 1887 by [[L.R. Burleigh]]]]
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In 1813, an entrepreneur from [[New York City]] named Jacob Treadwell Walden began purchasing land on both sides of the Wallkill River, with plans to develop a manufacturing settlement along the River.<ref name=":3" /> He convinced some of his business partners to finance the construction of [[wool]] mills on the river, attracted by the Great Falls as a source of power and the [[railroad]] connections at nearby [[Maybrook, New York|Maybrook]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} He dammed the Wallkill above the falls, creating a power station that remains in use today, and his mill was a success.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} By the 1820s, his mill became a notable regional producer of [[cotton]] and woolen [[Textile|cloth]].<ref name=":3" /> Wool-makers followed as the [[Industrial Revolution]] picked up steam and the growing population center became known instead as Walden's Mills.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} The area became a significant local producer of woolen products by the 1840s.<ref name=":3" />

In 1855, Walden was formally incorporated as a [[Administrative divisions of New York#Village|village]].<ref name=":3" />

Most of Walden's wool industry failed a few decades after it began, and people in the village sought to replace the mills with a different source of employment.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} The village began encouraging [[knife]] manufacturers to relocate from nearby [[Dutchess County, New York|Dutchess County]] to vacant mills.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} In 1856, the New York Knife Company moved to an idle cotton factory in Walden.<ref name=":3" /> The company would go on to make much of the cutlery employed by the [[Union Army]] during the [[U.S. Civil War]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

After the war, other knifemakers came to Walden. In the 1870s, the Walden Knife Company set up a factory in the village, and [[Imperial Schrade|Schrade Cutlery]] built a factory in Walden in 1904.<ref name=":3" /> The village soon became colloquially known as "Little Sheffield"<ref name=":3" /> and "Knifetown".{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} During this time, [[Rail transport|rail]] service arrived to Walden, facilitating passenger service and increased mobility for local manufactured goods.<ref name=":3" /> Other industrial concerns, making products as diverse as [[engines]] and [[lingerie|women's underwear]], also set up shop.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

In the early 1890s, President [[Grover Cleveland]] lowered [[tariff]]s on many imported goods, including knives.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} Competitively priced German cutlery began to flood the American market, and together with the [[Panic of 1893]] and the economic slowdown that followed for several years, the knife companies and their owners went heavily into [[debt]] and it looked for a while as if they might not survive.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}
[[Image:Walden McKinley statue.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Statue of President McKinley in downtown Walden]]
But in 1897 [[President of the United States|President]] [[William McKinley]], a personal friend of Thomas Wilson Bradley of the U.S. Knife Company, pushed through the [[Dingley Tariff]] that restored the ''[[status quo ante bellum|status quo ante]]''.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} The knifemakers returned to profitability and were able to pay off their debts; and in gratitude Bradley had a statue of McKinley erected that remains in Walden today.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

Throughout the early 1900s, the village experienced a period of substantial growth. Dense [[Mixed-use development|mixed-used development]] flourished in the village's [[downtown]], often taking form of residences above shops.<ref name=":3" /> [[Single-family detached home|Single-family homes]] also proliferated throughout the village, typically on relatively small [[Land lot|lot]] sizes.<ref name=":3" /> During this time, numerous government buildings were constructed.<ref name=":3" />

In the 1910s the facilities at the dam began to be primarily used for power and less for industry.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

Walden's Main Street was the site of an active retail trade which included Millspaugh's Furniture as well as Roosa's Jewelers, both still in business.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} Lustig's Department Store, established by Carl Lustig in 1883, was the mainstay of Main Street until its closing in 1986.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The [[Great Depression|Depression]] was hard on many of the village's economic concerns, but the knifemakers persisted.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} However, after [[World War II]] they gradually became less prominent and moved as the rail connections they had depended on were replaced by [[truck driver|trucking]] on the growing [[Interstate Highway]]s.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} In 1957,{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} Schrade Cutlery (renamed to Imperial Schrade) closed down its factory, and moved to nearby [[Ellenville, New York|Ellenville]].<ref name=":3" /> Schrade was the last company making knives in the village, and closed down its factory after a fire.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} It continued production in Ellenville until 2004.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} The ruins of the factory still stand behind the Thruway Markets [[hypermarket]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

Apart from knifemaking, Walden became a regional center for the [[Clothing|garment]] industry from the 1930s through the 1950s.<ref name=":3" />

As [[car dependency]] increased in the region during the late 20th century, aided by the construction of the [[New York State Thruway]] system and [[Interstate 84 (Pennsylvania–Massachusetts)|Interstate 84]], downtown businesses struggle to compete with car-oriented retail centers throughout the region.<ref name=":3" />

Throughout the 1990s, the village was the subject of an ongoing joke by a [[disc jockey]] at the nearby [[WPDH|WPDH-FM]] [[radio station]], who would constantly joke about Walden being a poor, [[redneck]], and [[Inbreeding|inbred]] town.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=August 9, 1997 |title=Small-Town Shock Jock Picks on Neighboring Village |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/09/nyregion/small-town-shock-jock-picks-on-neighboring-village.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171228212010/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/09/nyregion/small-town-shock-jock-picks-on-neighboring-village.html |archive-date=December 28, 2017 |access-date=March 30, 2024 |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Some villagers interviewed by [[The New York Times]] on the matter claimed the long-running joke hurt their civic esteem, and even [[real estate]] values in the village.<ref name=":4" />

From 1995 until 2016, Walden was the [[headquarters]] of the [[Big Apple Circus]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Collins |first=Glenn |date=September 19, 1998 |title=A Little Town and the Big Top; After Months of Traveling, Circus Settles in New Home |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/19/nyregion/little-town-big-top-after-months-traveling-circus-settles-new-home.html |access-date=April 10, 2023 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Circus {{!}} First of May {{!}} Episode 1 {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/video/circus-first-of-may/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Writer |first=MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment |title=Big Apple Circus to leave bankruptcy under new ownership |url=https://www.recordonline.com/story/news/2017/02/15/big-apple-circus-to-leave/22459420007/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |website=Times Herald-Record |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Brickley |first=Peg |date=November 21, 2016 |title=Big Apple Circus Files for Bankruptcy, Seeks Buyer |language=en-US |work=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-apple-circus-files-for-bankruptcy-seeks-buyer-1479733628 |access-date=April 10, 2023 |issn=0099-9660}}</ref>