Catskill Park is a vast protected region in eastern New York centered on the Catskill Mountains, encompassing a distinctive mix of private land, New York City watershed property, and state Forest Preserve. First used by Mahican and Esopus peoples mainly for hunting, the area was later transformed by logging, quarrying, tanning, trapping, fishing, and tourism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, New York established and defined the park, culminating in constitutional protection of state lands as “forever wild” and a legal definition that included all land within the Blue Line. Later reservoir construction reshaped parts of the park, which remains both a lived-in landscape and a major recreation area.