The Northern Catskills became one of America’s earliest vacation destinations, with the Kaaterskill Region centered on Haines Falls and the nearby Catskill Mountain House at its heart in the early 1800s. What is now the Kaaterskill Rail Trail began as a footpath linking the Catskill Mountain House and other hotels to Haines Falls, then evolved by the 1880s into a rail corridor where two competing passenger rail lines ran on parallel tracks toward the Catskill escarpment. Thousands of summer vacationers came on these newly constructed lines to enjoy the scenery and stay in boardinghouses, hotels, and resorts such as the Laurel House and the grand Hotel Kaaterskill. Along the route remain traces of that era, including stone culverts from the 1880s, railroad bridge abutments, logging roads, cinders from steam engines, hotel remnants, and views of Kaaterskill Falls once visible from the trains. A short distance away stands the Haines Falls Station of the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, built in 1913 to replace an earlier station at Haines Corners; after rail service in the area ended in 1940, it served for several years as a private home and is now the restored home of the Mountain Top Historical Society. Today the trail links Haines Falls with the 8,550 acre Kaaterskill Wild Forest in the Catskill Park, part of the New York State Forest Preserve, as the surrounding landscape continues to return toward the natural character that first drew visitors to the region.