Woodstock Was an Art Town Before It Was a Festival

The name “Woodstock” usually makes people think of the 1969 festival. But the town earned its creative name long before that. In 1902, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and his partners founded the Byrdcliffe arts colony on the slopes above the village. It was built around the Arts and Crafts movement: handmade furniture, pottery, weaving, and painting instead of factory work. Painters and craftspeople have come here ever since, and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild still runs the place today.

Here’s the fun twist neighbors love to share: the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair did not happen in Woodstock. It was held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, in Sullivan County, about 60 miles southwest of town. The festival kept the Woodstock name because the organizers had hoped to hold it there, and the name simply stuck.

So when you’re walking the village, you’re standing in a real art colony with more than a century of history, not the festival grounds. Both stories are worth knowing, and both are New York’s.