Mount Beacon provides view to the past

But it has been more than a decade since the old incline railway made travel to the top of the 1,500-foot mountain an easy trip.

"I remember taking my kids up there on the incline,'' said Town of Fishkill Historian Willa Skinner. "The scenery is breathtaking.''

Getting to that scenery is now a shorter trip for those willing to hike. Scenic Hudson, an organization that works to preserve the natural environment of the Hudson Valley, purchased land last year for a trail that starts at the base of Mount Beacon and heads up.

Though the trail and a parking lot for hikers haven't officially opened, they are already being used by many, said Ken Lutters, a senior landscape architect for with the state parks department in Staatsburg.

"We still need to put up a sign and kiosk and some fencing. But it's already being used quite a lot,'' he said.

The view from the top is worth the climb, said Carol Truppi, land projects manager for Scenic Hudson.

"On a clear day, you can see the twin towers in New York City,'' she said.

Before the opening of the parking lot and trail, the only way to reach the mountaintop was on hiking trails through the Hudson Highlands State Park, Truppi said. The new trail shortens the hike to the top.

Still, the trip up won't be as easy as it was earlier this century, when an incline railway hauled millions up the mountain.

The incline was opened in 1901 to take vacationers to a resort hotel and casino built on the mountain's flat top. Later it was used for skiers, said Robert Murphy, editor and officer of the Beacon Historical Society.

"The trolley (incline) stopped in the mid-1970s. In 1983, it was destroyed by fire,'' he said.

The casino was built on the mountaintop around 1902. The hotel followed a few years later, Murphy said.

"People came from all over the world. It was advertised as a health resort with ads saying it was 10 degrees cooler on the mountain in the summer than in (New York City) and without the summer flies,'' he said.

It's from the mountain that the City of Beacon got its name, Skinner said. "During the Revolutionary War, soldiers were on top and they wouldlight signal fires if they saw the British coming up the river,'' she said. The "beacons'' of warning led to the mountain's name, Skinner said.

In a way, the mountain still serves as a beacon, though now television and radio signals are sent from its top.

While the days of tourists and celebrities are gone, the remnants remain for those who make the trip up.

"You can still see parts of the incline railway,'' Skinner said.