In the late 1800s and early 1900s, millions of visitors came by train to the Catskills to escape New York City’s hot, polluted summers, and during a tuberculosis epidemic, families who could afford it sought the region’s balsam fresh air and pure water. Among the many hotels, inns, and boarding houses at Pine Hill and Highmount, the grandest was the Grand Hotel in Highmount, which stood from 1881 to 1966. A quarter mile long, it featured a rail-riding bar that moved back and forth across the county line to avoid blue laws restricting drinking hours. The Catskills now provide pure drinking water to over nine million people through a reservoir and aqueduct system that began with horse and wagon.